Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

As we enter the season of Lent, imagine with me that we might actually live Lent in our very bodies, and not just think about it. Without an embodied faith, we can lapse into overly intellectual and cognitive forms of religious observance. I often say to myself and others when confronted with a dilemma: “don’t overthink it.” It may be that Lent has been overthought and under-embodied. Much like this essay, it has been written about, but not lived. 

What I mean by embodied is that we might open all five of our senses up to Lenten experience. I believe the Apostle Paul was one who very much lived an embodied faith. He described the faithful as “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies” (2 Cor. 4:10). Followers of Jesus “are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2:15)

So, how might we embody Lent? Lent begins with perhaps the most tactile of liturgical days: Ash Wednesday. On this day, Lent can be touched. During this day Christians experience the “imposition” of ashes. That word carries with it some unfortunate overtones. Related to the verb “impose,” an imposition is something forced us on that carries with it the presumption of being unwelcome.

I don’t mean to impose, we say as we intrude into a circle of friends deep in conversation. 

Rather than a rude intrusion, the ashes are a welcome touch on our foreheads of an ancient sign and substance. The imposition of ashes carries with them a sense, both in their organic composition and their symbolism, of gravitas. The ashes are an imposition from beyond. They are a sign of the deepest truth: that we came from dust and to dust we shall return. 

That is why the sign on our foreheads is intended to linger on our bodies. As Christians bearing the sign of the Cross enter restaurants, coffee shops, subways, and neighborhoods, they carry with them the sign of their mortality and their redemption. Mortality lingers, until it is snuffed out like a flame.

And yet, it lingers still, long after it fades from our foreheads. It lingers even as the minister traces the sign of the cross on the head of the casket, recalling the sign which governs birth and now redeems death. 

Ash Wednesday is so transformative because it is the rare Christian ritual where we are touched by another human being, and the whole narrative symbology of our faith is traced on our very foreheads. We can feel the finger on our flesh, touch the ashy residue as we walk away, and see the sign of the cross reflected in the mirror. We need such tangible signs of hope and gravity in our increasingly transient and superficial realm.

Lent can be tasted and smelled. For centuries it has been customary to fast during Lent, right up to that great feast known as Easter. I remember early on in my observance of Lent as a Christian the act of giving up sweets—a long period of privation capped by Easter Sunday when I ate a piece of lemon buttercream cake from my favorite bakery. In many cultures it is common to have roast lamb on Easter. Hot cross buns, those delightfully sticky and sweet rolls, are often eaten on Good Friday. 

When we fast, we are invited to experience a small taste of suffering and to know the deep longing and need for wholeness with and through God. Jesus did not die so that we might diet our way to the Cross, but done with the right spiritual intent, fasting helps us to pause from the hedonistic impulses of our earthly life.   

And the smells are rich and otherworldly. The smell of incense drifting through holy space. The smell of rich baked communion bread. The smell of fresh palms flapping around in children’s hands on Palm Sunday. As you journey through Lent, be attentive to the ways God shows up in the aroma of Christ.

Lent can be seen. We see the smoke and fire of Ash Wednesday, where our confessions of sin (often literally in many congregations) are set on fire and we watch the smoke waft up to the heavens. A whole year of transgression can be seen to dissipate. We see the thick darkness of Tenebrae services, where the lights are extinguished one by one.

More and more these days, I have found myself looking at the cross during worship services. For one thing, it reminds me that our worship is directed to the One who died upon the Cross. On perhaps a more basic and biological level, having an image to train my eyes upon helps clarify the words I’m singing and saying in a way that is devotional, rather than perfunctory. 

Finally, Lent is heard. Perhaps Lent is heard even before it is believed. It is heard in the readings of Scripture which tell us of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, of his scourging and mocking and torture, and in his final hours on the Cross. Lent is heard as clergy say “from dust you came and to dust you shall return” on Ash Wednesday.

Lent is heard in the proclamation of preaching and in the gift of Bach on Good Friday. Lent is heard in Claudia Frances Hernaman’s Lenten masterpiece Lord Who Throughout These Forty Days sung by congregations. Lent is heard in church bells tolling, in the thick silence of death on Good Friday, stretching into Holy Saturday, all the way to the Empty Tomb. 

From the cross imposed on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, to the Cross on which Jesus died on Good Friday, Lent is bookended by the embodied Cross. We can’t blithely skip over Lent to Easter, unless we want a high-sugar diet with no nutritional content. In the strange life and death of God, there was no way to Easter except on the Via Dolorosa. An analogous truth finds us during Lent, for there is no cross without resurrection, no resurrection without the cross, and no joy without its antithesis sorrow. 

Give us Easter, yes Lord, give us Easter. But first, give us the aroma of Christ and let us carry around in our very bodies the death of Jesus. 

May we carry around the truths of Lent this year, inscribed on our foreheads, breathed into our nostrils, beheld by our eyes, and heard by our expectant ears. Amen.