Self-Denial in Lent:

Becoming a Burning and Shining Light

A Sermon

by

Rev. S. Randall Toms, Ph.D.

St Paul’s Anglican Church, Baton Rouge, LA

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. (Matt. 3:1-4)     

On Ash Wednesday, we will once again begin our annual season of Lent. Each year, especially for the next few days, we will begin to think of some form of discipline that we will practice during the forty days of Lent. Some people choose to give up certain foods, and some adopt a particular kind of discipline, perhaps giving up legitimate pleasures they normally enjoy. In the past, some people have given up watching television, sports, or going to movies. Some have decided to read the Bible more or to pray for longer periods. Why do we engage in these kinds of practices? No matter what kind of discipline we seek to engage in, there is always an element of self-denial involved.

The season of Lent reminds us that at the very root and center of the Christian life is the practice of self-denial. Sometimes, we Anglicans forget this principle of self-denial because of our teaching on Christian liberty. Many of us came from backgrounds that told us that almost every activity was sinful except going to church and reading the Bible. When we found this new freedom, this new expression of Christian liberty, we went so far in the other direction that we forgot that the Christian life is still about self-denial. Our Lord expressed this principle clearly when he said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:24). This denial of self takes many forms. It is a denial of our own wills; it is a denial of our tongues (refraining from saying things that are unkind and harmful); it is a denial of our own selfish dreams and desires; it is a denial of living our lives the way we want to live them rather than the way God wants us to live them; it is a denial of even legitimate pleasures when there is a higher good to be achieved by relinquishing them. Self-denial is a complete giving up of ourselves to live for Christ and him alone. The season of Lent is a training ground for greater acts of self-denial that the Christian will perform throughout the Christian life. Self-denial is the only way to grow in holiness. Self-denial is the only way to grow in Christian virtues. Self-denial is the only way to grow nearer and nearer to Christ. Self-denial is the only way to wean oneself from the world and all its attractions. Self-denial is the only way to be a Christian. As we go through our forty days of self-denial, perhaps we will begin to grow in this grace and be able to deny ourselves in even more heroic ways.

One of the first examples we find of self-denial in the New Testament is John the Baptist. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias and told him that he and Elizabeth were going to have a son, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb” (Luke 1:13–15). As Anglicans, we know that it is no sin to drink wine or strong drink. It is a sin to be drunk, to drink so much that we lose control of our thoughts, our tongues, and our actions. But it is obvious from this text that it is not wrong in and of itself to drink wine or strong drink. If it were wrong in and of itself, then it would have been unnecessary for Gabriel to forbid John to have them. Zacharias would have said, “Of course, he won’t have wine or strong drink. We are God-fearing Jews, after all, who never touch it.” No, people like Zacharias and Elizabeth, who walked in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless, were permitted to have wine and strong drink. Still, John would be forbidden this legitimate pleasure because it would be one of his particular forms of self-denial. As you know, this is basically a Nazirite vow. In the Old Testament, when someone took a Nazirite vow, they could not touch anything dead, cut their hair, or drink wine. John seems to be another one of those who would be Nazirites from the day they were born. Though it may be legitimate for other godly people to have wine and strong drink, John could not.

John the Baptist was called upon to live a life of intense austerity and self-denial. Of John the Baptist, the Scripture tells us, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel” (John 1:80). We don’t know how long John was in the desert. We know he is around 30 years old when he begins preaching publicly, but the Scriptures don’t tell us whether he went into the desert at age 15, 20, or 25. But we can assume that he had lived in the desert for quite some time. Some have speculated that John may have spent most of his life in the desert. Luke 1:7 tells us that his parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, were “well-stricken in years.” Some Bible scholars think that Zacharias and Elizabeth could have died not many years after John was born. As I’ve told you before, some people think John could have been part of a desert sect, such as the Essenes, but there is no proof of that. But it was the practice of some of these desert sects, such as the Essenes, to adopt orphans and raise them as part of their communities. If that is what happened to John, then he may well have been in the desert almost all his life. I think it’s safe to say he was in the desert for over 10 years. Can you imagine living in the desert that long? Think of the self-denial. Think of all that he had given up. There he was in the desert all those years, living in the heat of the sun, sometimes shivering in the cold at night. John did not live a life of physical comfort, much less luxury.

Then, not only were his living conditions terrible, but he also imposed other forms of austerity on himself. In Matthew 3:4, we read, “And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). Not only was he in the desert, he was wearing a kind of clothing that could also be described as “austere.” Jesus makes mention of John’s clothing when he challenged the multitudes by saying, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses” (Matt. 11:7–8). If any man ever wore the opposite of soft raiment, it was John the Baptist. Now, did God give a commandment to all people to live in such surroundings and be clothed with nothing but camel’s hair? No, but it was right for John to do that because it was the way for God to prepare him for what he had to do.

But not only was he austere in his manner of living and in his clothing, but he was also austere in his eating. We are told that he ate locusts and wild honey. In the list of clean foods that the people of Israel could eat, four insects were listed as clean food, and the locust is one of them: “Even these of them ye may eat: the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind” (Lev. 11:22).  If have ever wanted to try one of those and wondered if it was unclean, you have permission!  John ate locusts and honey, which were readily available in the desert wilderness. When we look at how we give up chocolate during Lent and then at John, I don’t think we should brag much. Can you imagine how thin John the Baptist must have been? I love all the icons of John the Baptist that you see in some churches. He is always depicted as sunburned and extremely gaunt, with a face so narrow and thin that his eyes and cheeks are sunken. Now, again, did God call all people to that kind of self-denial as far as eating was concerned? Of course not! Our Lord Jesus Christ himself wasn’t that austere. Remember how Jesus said, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:18–19). So many times, we find Jesus as a dinner guest at someone’s house. You would never have found John the Baptist in such a place. He was out in the desert, living on practically nothing. That’s not to say that Jesus didn’t deny himself. He denied himself in the greatest of all ways—going to the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.  But God had called John to live in this way.  God prepares each person in a different way to receive his grace. In the desert, this kind of clothing and diet were the way God prepared John. He calls us all to self-denial, but it may not be as severe as that of John.

Now, we might wonder why God had to train John with such extreme self-denial. One time, Jesus told the Jews who were questioning him that John was “a burning and shining light” (John 5:35). How did John become that burning and shining light? I believe that he became that burning and shining light in the desert. I can see John spending all those years in those lonely surroundings, praying and meditating on the Scriptures, and as he did, that fire began to burn in him. He knew that the Messiah was about to come. He knew all the sins of the people and the wickedness of the religious leaders, and the more he prayed and the more he meditated, the fire began to burn and burn, and finally that fire leaped out, and he burned and shone, and he appeared in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He sees these hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees, and he says, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” All those years spent denying himself in the wilderness made him this burning, shining light. John spent all those years developing an intense relationship with God.

And what was the result? We are told in Matthew 3:5, “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan.” When John the Baptist appeared on the scene to begin his public ministry, he didn’t even need to go into the city. He starts preaching in the wilderness, and the cities empty out to hear him. Interestingly, John doesn’t say, “If I had a really nice building in the suburbs of Jerusalem, I could really attract some people to my church.” No, he stays out there in the wilderness, and people by the thousands flock to hear him. He was a burning and shining light, and people, even Pharisees and Sadducees, felt as though they had to hear him. Years ago, I heard a preacher say, “If a man is really on fire for God, people will come just to watch him burn.” John was like that—a burning and shining light. Today, we have so many theories about how to grow the church. How can we attract the crowds, captivate the masses? How did John attract them? With a nice building? With a nice, comforting, therapeutic message? I’ll tell you why we don’t attract the masses. We don’t have any men—and I include myself in this, first and foremost—we don’t have any men who are burning and shining. This is why we feel we must use gimmicks of the church growth movement. We think we need to perform the miraculous to give people the opportunity to see all kinds of signs and wonders, but we are told plainly in John 10:41: “John did no miracle.” Miracles were not the attraction. The attraction was that he was a burning and shining light, a burning and shining light because he had spent all those years of self-denial in the desert.

These days, we need some desert saints, not literally living in the desert, but people practicing self-denial in their ordinary daily lives.  In a way, we can say that John was the first of the desert saints. The Church has a long history of these desert saints, people who have genuinely lived the same kind of life as John the Baptist, engaging in extreme acts of self-denial, and in many cases, the reaction was the same as that of the people to John the Baptist. The Church has had a history of desert saints, hermits who lived in caves and huts, and hundreds and thousands of people would go to them to be taught the wisdom that they had learned in the desert. They never had to publicize themselves, never had to raise their voices. Still, people could sense that there was a burning and shining light in them—a burning and shining light within that can’t be faked, can’t be mimicked, and can’t be the product of a skillful orator.  Rather, these people had a  burning and shining light that was the product of years of self-denial.

You can be a burning and shining light, but it only comes at the cost of self-denial. This is the clear teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that every Christian is called upon to lead the kind of life that John lived or that the great desert saints lived, but God calls upon each of us to live a life of self-denial in each sphere of life, each calling, each vocation in which God has placed us. When speaking of John the Baptist, our Lord said, “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). How did John learn to be this great man? He learned all his virtues in the school of self-denial, and there is no other place for each of us to learn them other than in that desert.

During Lent, each of us can enter into our own desert of self-denial and, like John, be trained to be a burning and shining light in this generation. We live in a time when self-denial is no longer a virtue. As a matter of fact, self-denial is looked upon as the greatest of all sins. The chief virtue of American culture is self-indulgence. Still, we have lived to see what a dead end that kind of life is—a life without lasting happiness, a life that, at the end of the day, is still filled with emptiness and longing for something better than this world offers. Like John, we must give an example of the opposite of that kind of life. We must live a life that is totally different from one of grasping for the things of this world so that we might turn others' thoughts to those things that are above.

Let us use this Lenten season as a time to go with John into the desert, learn there the virtues we need to learn, and then we can come out as burning and shining lights with the great message, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Amen.