The Season of Lent

The Season of Lent
by
February 18, 2026

Recently, I sat in my office with a man just diagnosed with stage four cancer. He received the news about a month ago and he wanted to process it with me. He told me he was grateful for the many years that he had already lived, but that he was still shocked by the diagnosis. He does not know how much time he has left, but I told him that whatever it is, he should focus on the things that really matter – faith, inner growth, family, and friendship. When people find out they are approaching the end, accomplishments, money, prestige, and success seem to fade. They simply want to spend time with the people that they love.

We are about to begin the season of Lent, the forty-day period leading up to Easter. We will have an Ash Wednesday service tomorrow night at 6:30. During Lent, we will explore Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse” in John 13-17. John commits 5 full chapters to this. We are also offering some excellent classes at church for you to grow deeper.

David Gibson, pastor of Trinity Church in Aberdeen, Scotland, recently published an excellent book on Ecclesiastes titled Living Life Backwards. The book focuses on the words of King Solomon, “the Preacher,” in Ecclesiastes as he seeks to wrestle with the meaning and purpose of life. Death is inevitable, and we all have to deal with it. Once we accept the fact that we will not live forever, we can begin to focus on what matters most. Christians can be guilty of losing sight of the world to come. We sometimes live as though we will be here forever. According to Gibson, “We display our sense of permanence by our lifestyle choices: the homes we live in, the money we spend, the churches we build, the investments we pursue, and the priorities we live for. We hold the good things of this world too tightly and lavish our affections on them too freely.” But this world is temporary, many things don’t make sense, and we will not live forever. Gibson argues that the main message of Ecclesiastes is this: “The gift of God does not make meaninglessness go away: the gift of God makes this vanity enjoyable.” We should not try to control every aspect of life, but we should receive life as a gift. Many people struggle to do this.

Some will read Ecclesiastes and wonder, “If all is vanity, then what’s the point?” Gibson says, “What we long for and live for is happiness, on the surface of our lives and at the deepest level of our lives. In all our varied pursuits – earning a living, finding a spouse, raising good children, having fun, keeping fit – we exhibit a common desire to be happy in what we do. Yet as the Preacher points out, happiness is fleeting. We all must deal with emptiness, suffering, and disappointment. “In the end, achievement and pleasures do not last. Everything is ephemeral. Happiness is a vanishing vapor. All our bubbles burst eventually.”

Far too many people travel through this world entitled, ungrateful, with the wrong focus and the wrong priorities. They are too self-absorbed and end up lonely and miserable. According to Gibson, “If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you – your friend, your spouse, your children, your brother, your sister, the people God has put in your path are your waking concern, then you will find happiness. If your head hits the pillow at night full of questions about how you can serve someone else, how to be there for others, then you will find a gladness and contentment that nothing else can match.”

Life is about relationships and being there for each other. Death is the great equalizer. It should remind us to make the most of the days we are given. Not a single one of us knows how many days that might be. Remember that as we journey towards Easter!

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