The original date of publication for this essay is Sunday, February 14th. It is the 31st of what’s intended to be a year’s worth of essays, published on Sundays. That intention, like everything, is subject to change.
Last week’s essay: On Neighbors
On Ash Wednesday three years ago, I was in Washington. The city. Not the state. I was working remotely for the week so I could spend it with Emma, it being the week of her birthday. I was wrapping something up for the website. I was running late.
Emma was singing in a choir at the time at a church in Woodley Park, but she lived in Adams Morgan. She’d gone straight from the Capitol to church to warm up. I was working at her apartment. Mass was at six. The church was a fifteen or twenty-minute walk away. I walked out her front door at 5:50.
I have been late plenty of times in my life. I hate it. It’s embarrassing, to lack the self-control to be on time. It’s shameful, disrespecting others, either by wasting their time waiting for me or by presuming they’ll be the ones at their tables so the meeting can start, or in their seats so the show can start, or in their pews so the service can start. I’m not always late, but I often am, and every time I am, I’m seared with guilt, shame, and frustration.
It appeared this would be my fate again that night. I would scuttle in late, and Emma would roll her eyes up front in the choir, and I’d MF myself through the whole service for, on the first day of Lent, of all the days, not making the effort to be on time.
But I’d been running that week. I’d run that direction that very morning, up Connecticut and back. I knew how far the church was, and I knew how fast and slow I was, and when my watch read 5:52 as I exited her building’s front door, I decided I would not be late. I decided to run.
To be clear, this was not some frenzied dash. I knew how fast and slow I was. I knew I could get there as the service began with just a normal run. But I was, to be fair, wearing church clothes, which in this case were roughly equivalent to business casual.
And so it was, that at 5:55 PM on Ash Wednesday 2018, as the sky glowed gold with remnants of a sunset that hinted of spring, I crossed Rock Creek via the Connecticut Avenue Bridge, strides long, the collar of my buttondown bouncing lightly, nodding to commuters as I passed.
There was a lot of joy to this, and not just from the endorphins. From the jaws of delinquency, I was managing to arrive on time. I would not be late to Mass that night. Not on Ash Wednesday. It wasn’t a victory, exactly, but it wasn’t a defeat.
It occurred to me then, and it occurs to me now, that this is not a bad way to approach Ash Wednesday: Running to the altar, ready to prepare oneself for the sacrifice of the Lord.
What did not occur to me then was how much that run is, in such a way, Lent.
Christians do not enter Lent on time. Christians enter Lent delinquently, showing up just weeks after the entrance of God into our world, just months after Advent renews the church year and calls us to repent (which means reorient, not self-flog, as a good pastor once taught my church), and less than a year since the end of the last Lent. We enter on the heels of chance after chance to change ourselves, many taken. We enter Lent sinners, oftentimes racking up a bit more gluttony on the way in.
If we were not running late—If we were not sinners—If we were not in need of repentance (reorientation)…there would be no Lent. There would be no penance. There would be no mourning. There would be no need for hardening sacrifice. There would be no need for solemnity. There would be no need for Easter. Were humanity without sin, were humanity really ready for Lent…there wouldn’t be a point for Jesus at all.
And so, at our best, we enter Lent this week, locking the door fifteen minutes late. And so, at our best, we will continue Lent, running awkwardly but calmly towards the altar. And so, at our best, we shall arrive at Easter Sunday, a bit failed, a bit disheveled, still sinful, but perhaps better than we were. Perhaps closer than we were to what we could be. Perhaps, for a day, on time, having caught ourselves in our sin-filled tracks, reoriented, and run towards grace.
It had been a springlike day, and I was sweaty when I showed up at the church. Not drenched, exactly, but plenty more than damp. I spent the service on the edge of my seat, not out of excitement, but because if I leaned back there was no chance my back would dry, and it was having a hard time airing out already.
I also arrived right as the service was starting, taking a seat in the back while the opening choruses were sung. I hadn’t missed the beginning—I wasn’t “late”—but I wasn’t truly on time. And so it will be for us as well. We will not really be “on time.” The best one hopes for in Lent is often nominal success. Successfully sticking with whatever we told ourselves we’d relinquish. Successfully sticking with whatever extra religiosity we told ourselves we’d add to our lives. Successfully “completing” Lent, like some spiritual car wash, temporary but satisfying. Of course, that isn’t really the point of Lent. It’s not a checklist, or some measuring test. But it isn’t the tempering fire either. It’s not the forty days that will cleanse us of our sins, remake us in God’s image, and bring His Kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven.
No, it’s not a car wash. And it’s not a fire.
It’s something in between.
So, on this Wednesday, we’ll look up. We’ll see our sins. We’ll see how far the altar. We’ll lock the door.
And we’ll start running.
Next week’s essay: On This Week
That’s nice. I particularly like the a wash analogy.