Lent as Spiritual Detox
Lent is a six-week season in the Christian year prior to Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday and corresponding to the 40 days (not including Sundays) Jesus spent in the desert being tested by the devil.
In the ancient church, Lent was a time for new converts to be instructed for baptism, and for believers caught in sin to focus on repentance. In time, all Christians came to see Lent as a season to be reminded of their need for penitence, to resist the world, the flesh and the devil, and to prepare spiritually for the celebration of Easter. Lent is the church’s ‘spiritual detox.’
Lent is not merely a time for ‘giving up’ something. It is also a time of adopting new, life-giving spiritual practices. I invite you to join me this Lent in a rhythm of praying the Psalms of Ascent, guided by Eugene Peterson’s excellent book, ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society.” The book is available here.
The plan is to read and pray one psalm each Sunday of Lent, and each day of Holy Week, along with the corresponding chapters from Peterson’s book.
A Long Obedience is based on the Psalms of Ascent, the fifteen brief psalms that were sung by the Hebrew tribes’ as they journeyed three times a year for their great feasts in Jerusalem. Peterson’s book is a deeply encouraging read, and a wonderful tool for a Lenten discipline that is itself a kind of pilgrimage on our way to Easter. Just as the pilgrims worshipped God all the way to the temple, with the arrival at the temple the climax of that worship experience, so do we worship our way through Lent, strengthening that worship through our continued study and prayer during the week.
Peterson opens with a convincing case for why we need ‘a long obedience in the same direction’:
“One aspect of ‘the world’ that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once… It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain that interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate…There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sing up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.” (A Long Obedience, chapter 1).
Lenten Reading Schedule
Ash Wednesday (March 5): A Long Obedience, chap 1
Sunday March 9: Psalm 120 and A Long Obedience, chap 2
Sunday March 16: Psalm 121 and A Long Obedience, chap 3
Sunday March 23: Psalm 122 and A Long Obedience, chap 4
Sunday March 30: Psalm 123 and A Long Obedience, chap 5
Sunday April 6: Psalm 124 and A Long Obedience, chap 6
Holy Week:
Sunday April 13 (Palm Sunday): Psalm 125 and A Long Obedience, chap 7
Monday April 14: Psalm 126 and A Long Obedience, chap 8
Tuesday April 15: Psalm 127 and A Long Obedience, chap 9
Wednesday April 16: Psalm 128 and A Long Obedience, chap 10
Thursday April 17: Psalm 129 and A Long Obedience, chap 11
Good Friday April 18: Psalm 130 and A Long Obedience, chap 12
Saturday April 19: Psalm 131 and A Long Obedience, chap 13
Sunday April 20 (Easter Sunday): Psalm 133 and Psalm 134, and A Long Obedience, chapters 15 and 16
