As you undoubtedly know, Lent is coming quickly upon us. Ash Wednesday will mark the beginning of the earliest Lenten season this century. It seems like we have only just finished celebrating the Feast of the Nativity, and we begin preparing for the Feast of the Resurrection.

Most prefer Advent to Lent. Lent confronts us with ideas and teachings that will make us squirm in our pews.  If it isn’t enough that we are hit Sunday after Sunday with words like “penitence,” “fasting” and “contrition”-- we also get a heavy dose of spiritual warfare. In Lent we are reminded that the sin in our lives is not just our own failure to do that which we know we ought, but also that spiritual powers are at work within us and the world, trying to separate us from the love of God. The Gospels point to spiritual entities which modern people often pretend aren’t really there.  What are these entities?

We tend to think of demons only as unbelievable characters in horror movies or perhaps as mythical figures in old-fashioned stories and paintings.  And it must be said, right off the bat, that much of our folklore-like portrayal of devils is just that - folklore.  Demons are not characters who wear red suits.  But if they aren’t that, what are they?  

Demons are spiritual forces.  In particular, they are spiritual forces of evil.   Demons are false gods which set themselves up in our hearts, and claim our devotion and attention.  When these spiritual forces are able to take control of our mind and heart--we say that someone is “vexed” by a devil.

None of the stories we will hear in the Gospel are about demons primarily; they are about us being saved from demons.  That is, the Gospels are about our being set free from the spiritual forces of evil which we so often let rule in our minds and hearts.

Lent isn’t about us being preoccupied with sin and evil–Lent reminds us that Christ has won the victory over sin and the devil.   Lent is about reforming us in light of this victory--our reformation through the power and presence of God in Christ in our lives.  Lent is about Jesus himself working in us, triumphing over the stubbornness of our sins, and giving us new life through his Spirit.

One of the great Gospel narratives traditionally read during Lent is the story of the Canaanite woman and the healing of her daughter (Matt.15:21-28).  Like many of the Gospel accounts chosen particularly for the Lenten season, it shows us so clearly how each one of us can participate in Christ’s work of healing our souls.  She comes in simple humility--with no airs or presumption.  And the grace of God, undeserved as it is, is not held back from her: “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee as thou wilt.”

Jesus’ gift to the woman’s daughter is the gift of wholeness.  This is his gift to us as well.  God’s power working in us is able to make our spirits--our lives--whole.  We don’t have the power to do that, but God does.  It takes a miracle to expel the devil--and so too it takes a miracle for God to cure us of our stubborn sins. God alone has the power to rebuke the demons of our perversities and cast them out.

Lent should not be denied or diminished because of its penitential nature but we should rejoice in this time as God rebuffs the demons working to keep us from Christ, as he erases the stubborn sins which we just can’t master. This is the good news of the Gospel.  As long as those sins have a place in our minds and souls we’ll never know what wholeness is.  The glory of the message of Lent is that when we look at ourselves and say: “It will take a miracle to make me whole!”--that miracle is precisely what we’re being offered.