Lorraine’s post on Lenten practices inspired me to think about the season in a more personal and less communal way. I’d been reading a few other things, in print and online, about the freedom that comes from sacrifice, about the feeling of personal power that comes through self-denial or through discipline, about the liberty that comes from freeing one’s self from the bondage of bad habits. I can almost hear an orchestral Also Sprach Zarathusrta as I read. Glory Hallelujah. It all sounds so grand.

But I have long ago recognized the selfishness that masquerades as sacrifice. I don’t kid myself that “giving up” things that are bad for me is something I do for Christ. In the same way, I have long ago understood that “freedom”  is a false god. Discipline, self-denial, renunciation, sacrificial generosity of time and wealth—it’s true that these practices free us from enslavement to the bad habits of selfishness, but it’s done through our own efforts, our own initiative, and thus do we become masters of ourselves, like lonely eastern gurus sitting on mountaintops, sovereign and “free.” But we free ourselves only to become the slaves of our selves. Anyone who’s traveled that rocky road knows what I mean. Whether the travel is successful or not, sooner or later, one discovers the true nature of its destination. The ascent to that mountaintop of freedom is a descent into self-imprisonment, where we find ourselves in the most profound mea culpa experience of all.

Devout Jews in the time of Christ kept the altar of the Temple flowing with blood. But Christ said, quoting the prophet Micah, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” And he told his disciples to go and think about what that means. And so maybe Lent is a time to go and think about what that means. I don’t think that sacrifice, for the sake of it alone—as a practice of tradition—or for the sake of ourselves, to improve our mental or physical health, gaining power through self-mastery, is what it means.

Christ’s own forty days were spent in withdrawal, alone, in the desert. The desert is understood as a metaphor for the absence of involvement with the world. He was not going about preaching or healing; he was not involved with the world at all. We are encouraged by our priests and by our traditions to perform acts of charity during Lent as a proactive participation in the season, but that’s not what Christ did. Indeed, he spent his life in such acts—except during those forty days.

So what did he do? He confronted his tempter. We live in the world, involved with others, our family and friends, our community, and we owe that community our charity in all the forms it requires—time, money, attention, labor. Our “desert” then is not a literal one. But we follow Christ into the desert, nonetheless, to confront our tempter. That’s what he did.

Lent is a time of purgation. In traditional Jewish households, the time before Passover is spent in cleaning. The woman of the house goes through it turning over every item, peering into every cabinet or hidden place with a candle, searching for any sign of leaven. We can think of leaven as bacteria, the germ of sin. And we clean house. That’s what happened in the desert. Christ had no sin in himself to find. But we do.  And the discovery leads us to follow the rest of the prophet Micah’s admonition, after we have thought about that means, as Christ commanded us to do: Purgation will lead us to “walk humbly with our God.” We do not pursue freedom; we try to make ourselves worthy to become slaves, so that—not in the pride of self-sacrifice or of self-mastery—we may walk humbly with our God to Calvary. Lent is not a time to make sacrifice; it’s a time to become worthy of being a sacrifice.