What are you giving up for Lent?
We Christians love to ask that question and compare the degrees of personal sacrifice and hardship we are willing to endure for a few weeks late winter..early Spring.
Christian #1 “I’ve gone without chocolate for a month, thought I’d never get through it.”
Christian #2 “Well, I haven’t had the TV on since Fat Tuesday and missed out on the best parts of the Olympics and “Survivor.” Who was kicked off? No don’t tell me until Easter Sunday.”
I guess the main reason people give up pleasurable things during lent is to serve as a reminder of Christ’s suffering.
I usually don’t take part in the giving-up thing because I’m always reminded of His suffering this time of year from an episode in my youth.
During the week of Ash Wednesday, every kid in Sunday School class at First Lutheran Church in Volga would be issued a container about the size of a pop can. It had a slot in the top and was wrapped in holy purple construction paper with our names written on it.
It was our responsibility to fill those cans with coins during Lent. The money would then be donated to the poor or to foreign missions or something. We were to bring those Lenten Coin Containers back to church with us on Easter Sunday. Then each class would march up front to deposit them on the altar demonstrating the financial sacrifice we had made for our risen Lord.
Both my two brothers and I always had good intentions of putting every spare piece of change we had into those cans but would wind up blowing it on candy, the pin-ball machine at City Cafe or the must-have spring edition of baseball cards that just arrived at Westaby’s Clover Farm store.
Before long it was the Saturday night before Easter morning and we’d only managed to drop a few measly pennies in those cans over the last 40 days and now faced the embarrassment of having the whole congregation discover what sinful, lazy cheapskates those Lund boys were.
And that’s when God worked His miracle!
As we reached for our mostly empty Lenten Coin Containers and prepared to face the scorn of the masses at church, we were shocked to find the cans were suddenly heavy..filled nearly to the brim with pennies, nickels, dimes and a few quarters.
A guardian angel had come in the night to save us!
I think of that wonderful angel a lot. She was not only there for me at Easter but anytime I needed someone to bail me out of trouble with no questions asked.
I sure miss you mom.
