Celebrating Lent - An Oxymoron? | Lent Devotional Day 3

Exploring the Meaning of Jesus’ Death
February 20, 2026
Written by: Bentley Caughlan

Celebrating Lent — An Oxymoron?

Scripture:

12 Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your hearts,
  with fasting, with weeping, and with sorrow;
13  tear your hearts and not your clothing.
    Return to the Lord your God,
        for he is merciful and compassionate,
        very patient, full of faithful love,
            and ready to forgive.
(Joel 2:12–13, CEB)

Reflection:

“Celebrate Lent.”

It almost sounds wrong.
Lent is ashes.
Lent is repentance.
Lent is silence, fasting, confession.
Lent is the long walk toward the cross.
Lent dims the lights.
Lent quiets the music.
Lent removes the alleluias.
Nothing about it feels like a party.

And yet…

The prophet Joel calls people to return, not as an act of despair, but as an act of hope. “Return to the Lord… for God is gracious and merciful.” Lent is not a celebration of sin or suffering. It is a celebration of the possibility of turning around. Of recovery. The possibility of seeing beyond the addiction, beyond the lies, beyond those things that elicit nothing but guilt.
 
To celebrate Lent is not to celebrate sorrow, it is to celebrate honesty. It is to celebrate the strange and freeing truth that we do not have to pretend. We can take off our masks, our facades, and just… be.

In a culture that prizes distraction and self-protection, choosing repentance seems radical! Choosing self-examination is courageous. Choosing to admit that we are dust (and beloved dust at that) is strangely… joyful.

Lent makes space for grief. It invites us to name what is broken in us and around us. But it also insists that God meets us there. The cross we move toward is not divine cruelty; it is divine solidarity. Jesus does not avoid suffering. He greets it.

So perhaps celebrating Lent is not an oxymoron after all!  We celebrate because we are invited back. We celebrate because God’s grace is not exhausted by our failures.  We celebrate because even in the ashes we wear, there is promise.  Lent is not loud joy; it is steady joy.  It is the quiet celebration of a God who welcomes our return, always.

Prayer:

Creator of all things,
teach us how to return to you with our whole hearts.
Please, give us courage to face what we would rather avoid.
Hold us gently in seasons of repentance and grief.
Help us trust that your grace is deeper than our shame.
As we walk toward the “cross,” steady our steps with hope.
Amen.

Reflection Question:

In recovery we learn the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I like the phrase: Control the controllable.
 
What is something that you may be trying to change or control that is unchangeable or uncontrollable? What can you let “be” this season?

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