What are we giving up?

There has been some debate around the mass closing of churches during the time of the virus — and for good reason. To halt our work of public worship is a dramatic and almost unprecedented step. Most Christians, liturgical or not, rightly view corporate worship as the centring heartbeat of our faith.

But what lessons do we have to learn in these unusual times? What are we really being asked to give up in this unusual season of Lent? On one hand, we can protest these closures. We can protest them with politics and with religion and perhaps even with some degree of science that says we might just be overreacting.

Or, we can also choose to walk another path. We can invite this Lenten fast into our spirits. We can invite this change of tradition into our hearts and into our spiritual lives to open ourselves up to God’s new work. Because yes, God is always doing a new work.

Even in our solitude, God is afoot. In this new silence, God is afoot. In the shuttering of churches, God is afoot.

People often speak about wanting to take Lent more seriously, to find the spirit of this season in a deeper sense than simply foregoing chocolate or alcohol for a few weeks. Our culture isn’t built to give things up. It isn’t designed to rest in silence. This is often true in both our sacred and our secular lives. This Lent, however, is a different…