This morning I need to tell you about the British tradition of potato chips.  Potato chips were in fact invented in the US by a man called George Crum in 1853.  But in 1920 a UK company called Smiths invented a way of seasoning them and the flavoured potato chip was born.  Actually, they’re potato ‘crisps’ in the UK, because a ‘chip’ is a big thick French fry.  And over the years there have been scores of new flavours like Worcester sauce, cheese and onion, Marmite, and prawn cocktail.  Now last year Walker’s, the name which Lays goes by in the UK, launched a competition for devoted snackers to name new flavours of crisp.  They called it ‘Do us a flavour’ and they had a million entries (which is about 2% of every man, woman and child in the Kingdom).  They picked seven  winners, and here they are: Fish & Chips (no surprises there), Onion Bhaji (which is a little Indian delicacy of deep fried curried onion), Chocolate & Chili (you heard it right), Crispy Duck & Hoi Sin, Builder's Breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, ketchup etc) Cajun Squirrel (which speaks for itself), and hedgehog.

Well, strange as it may seem, snack food and Lent go together.  See if you can tell me what popular snack was invented in 610 AD by an Italian monk as a reward to children who learn their prayers?  It is the pretzel and the folded strips of dough are supposed to resemble arms crossing the chest.  The Italian word for pretzel is 'pretiola' and it means “little rewards".  And the fact that they have no yeast in them led pretzels to become the perfect Lenten snack, giving the appearance, at least, of being frugal.

Now snack food was not on the mind of Jesus during his forty-day fast in the desert.  Well, actually it probably was, because the devil tempted him to turn stones into not pretzels but real bread. 

Luke says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.”  I bet he was.  He ate nothing for forty days and he was famished.  Stating the obvious rather.  But sometimes it’s worth stating the obvious just to make sure everyone has really got the point.  And Luke wants to make sure we really do get the point.  Jesus was hungry.  And the point is that Jesus was not doing this fast as a kind of superman.  Sure he was the Son of God, God incarnate, the Second person of the Trinity.  But he faced this ordeal in the desert just like any other human being.  And if he can face trials and temptations as a regular human being then that’s good news for us.  We are regular human beings.  We have to go through hard times and face temptations each day in the same way Jesus did.  He has been there before us.  And, of course, he withstood the temptations, the very ones we face.  So just this once it is helpful to have the obvious stated.

But there’s a bigger question about the forty-day fast that Jesus endured.  It’s the question: Why?  Why fast for forty days?  Surely Jesus was going to face enough temptation as it was, without intentionally going looking for it.  It seems to me that if you choose to fast, especially for such a gruelingly long time, you’re going to face a lot of temptations that you wouldn’t face if you were eating normally.  So why put yourself through physical and spiritual hardships unless you really had to?  And the answer I think is because Jesus showed us that enduring hardship is not just doable, but it can produce good things in us.  That’s true of all hardship, but especially when it is voluntary.  St Paul, writing to the Romans says, “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope.”  And character and hope are good things.  But they a by-product of suffering with perseverance.  They don’t usually stem from an easy life.

Christians have always viewed Lent as an opportunity for denying themselves.  And usually that has been denying ourselves things that aren’t actually bad.  In fact the things we deny ourselves can be thoroughly good, but they are things that we can live without.  We have 365 days each year (not just forty) when we should be denying ourselves things that are actually sinful.  We should be viewing every day as a day to give up things that are wrong.  But for forty we think about how to give up things that aren’t necessarily wrong, but are luxuries we can live without.  Now I grew up with that kind of discipline and tradition.  But recently I have kind-of rebelled against it.  I’ve thought “God has created every good thing for our enjoyment, so why submit to man-made religious traditions by giving up good things for Lent.  Instead”, I‘ve thought, “why not take on some good habits, or some act of kindness or a positive service.  That way you’re doing good to yourself and to other people instead of denying yourself.”  But I have to confess I’m re-thinking things again.  And I think I’m coming back to my tradition.  I think I’m seeing that there are good reasons to have a season of giving up things that aren’t necessary, luxuries if you will.  Because there are good things that happen to us when we do that:

1          We break our dependency on trivia.  To give up chocolate, or TV, or sport, or reading novels, or whatever non-essential thing it might be strips away those little distractions in our lives that prevent us from focusing our energy on the things that truly matter.  Things like prayer, or time with family or church.  Now let me say I’ve given up none of those things, but you get my point.  Lent is a time for getting a proper perspective on life – identifying what’s important on the one hand and what we can live without, on the other.  It’s a chance to examine the details of life – our use of time, our spending, our relationships, our spiritual health.  Lent gives us the opportunity to remove the props we usually lean on to get through the day.  I’m not necessarily talking about full-blown addictions, although I’d certainly include them, but those things we use to fill up the space in our lives so we don’t feel bored or guilty or in need.  Every man and woman has that tendency to prop up our lives with stuff that we hope will deaden the pain or fill up the emptiness.  When we identify those things and give them up we open the way for God to take their place.  And, of course, he doesn’t take their place, as such.  It’s the other way round.  Those things took HIS place.  We are simply getting things the right way round again.  Removing those props and allowing the rightful occupant to take his place. 

You’ve probably heard people say, “Religion is just a crutch”.  And when someone says that to me I say “Yes.  Actually.  You’re right.  It is a crutch.  What’s yours?  Because if you’re truly honest you’ll admit you have one too.  The real question is whose crutch is going to let them down under the weight of life’s tragedies.  Your man-made flimsy crutch or the living God?”  And there’s that famous quote by Karl Marx, “Religion is the opium of the people” – the drug or painkiller, if you like.  And again I say “Yes. It is.  But what’s yours?  And whose painkiller is going to work when you go through the darkest time of suffering.  Yours or the Lord Almighty whose Son has gone there already and is able to keep you from being destroyed by it?”

And then in forty days we can resume those things we’d given up.  But be warned.  It only takes a month to form a habit.  Sometimes Christians give up something for Lent with the intention of going back to it at Easter and find that they’ve actually moved on from that thing.  They don’t miss it.  It no longer appeals to them.  The good disciplines that they followed during Lent have become habits and now they’re a permanent feature of their lives for their blessing and other people’s.

2          Giving up something that is good for Lent or for some other period of time builds up your spiritual muscles.  Here’s a tip I’ve discovered.  When it comes to sin, there are two types of people in the world.  There are those who are more geared towards doing things that are wrong.  And there are those who are more prone to NOT doing what is right.  The Catholics call them, on one hand, sins of commission (you actually do something that is wrong) and, on the other hand, sins of omission (it’s not so much doing bad things as failing to do good things).  A guess an example of a sin of commission would be seeking revenge on someone and actively trying to harm them.  A sin of omission would be seeing someone lying on the sidewalk in pain and just walking on by.  Do you see the difference?  Maybe you can quickly decide which one you naturally tend towards, given your temperament.  Now if you lean towards sins of omission then a good Lenten discipline for you might be to actively get involved in some project or a positive habit or a good practice that has benefits for you or other people.   If you lean naturally towards sins of commission then refraining from things will be a good Lenten discipline.  And here’s the thing.  As we do this we find that our spiritual muscles are built up and it gets easier to do them again.  So giving up something makes it easier to give things up.  The experience of many people who fast from food regularly is that it gets easier over time.  At first it’s a real struggle to miss a meal, but then the more they do it the less of a big deal it becomes.

3          The third benefit of giving something up for Lent is that it helps us to really feel our needs.  If you’ve given up tea, for example, (I haven’t done that either) then when you get the urge to drink tea you can truly feel the pain of being deprived something that you can actually have.  We can experience the hunger and embrace it, make a friend out of it.  We can think about how it feels for people who never have the opportunity to drink tea.  We can allow the discomfort to remind us of Jesus and his self-denial in the desert and on the cross.  And then we can invite God into the hole left by the thing we’re craving.  We can pray "Oh, God, I could murder a cup of tea.  But that’s nothing compared to how much I need you.  Please fill me up with your love and your Holy Spirit.”  Our society tells us that if we have a desire and we have the means to meet that desire we should just go ahead and consume the thing we want.  The idea of choosing to go without something that we could easily have in order to experience our human need for God is a weird thing for our society.  But it has great rewards for the soul that chooses this path.

Friends, we’re only five days into Lent.  It’s not too late to start a discipline.  You don’t have to, of course.  We’re free to do so and free not to.  But let me leave you with a question.  If taking on a spiritual discipline or denying yourself some luxury will give you great reward why wouldn’t you?  Helping us get the important things in life in perspective; building up our spiritual muscles; learning to engage with Christ and his suffering.  These are the benefits.  Jesus returned from his time of self-denial in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We will too if we follow his example.