Fast 40: Practicing the Ancient Spiritual Discipline of LentSample

I believe Christ died long before His death. In fact, I think He did so three times before He died on the Cross of Calvary.

He died first when He died to His ministry at the age of twelve (Luke 2:51). Jesus spent eighteen years in total obscurity, working as a carpenter. Imagine that. For two decades, Jesus went from teaching teachers to building picnic tables. Most of us would blame God as abusive for that kind of suppression.

We are culturally conditioned to want everything on our own terms. We fear we’ll miss out or spiral into depression if we can’t be our ‘authentic selves.’ But Christ was at peace in that storm. He patiently submitted to His parents, maintained His duties, and waited on the timing of God.

The second time He died was when He submitted to the will of the Holy Spirit in the wilderness. He died to His physical desires, and that is what Lent is all about: a death to the natural life.

Lent is a spiritual declaration of independence from the natural and a demonstration of dependence upon the supernatural. The paradox of Lent is that we die to live rather than live to die.