Two months ago, we began the journey of Lent together.

Here’s part of what I said then as I introduced the idea of experimenting together with the idea of observing Lent:

Lent is a time for intense study of God’s Word, for meditation, for prayer, and for self-examination

It’s a way to prepare for the amazing hope that we celebrate at Easter.

Lent is a journey designed to help us join our lives with the life of Jesus. One person said it this way:

“At the very heart of the Christian faith is our common participation in the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and Spirit-giving of Jesus Christ.”

And that quote is one that still sticks with me today, as I’ve spent time thinking back over the Lent experiment.

It nails down the very heart of what it means to follow Jesus. Life with Jesus isn’t just about what we believe, or what we do on Sunday, or following a list of rules. Listen to it again:

“At the very heart of the Christian faith is our common participation in the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and Spirit-giving of Jesus Christ.”

Together, in common, we don’t just learn what Jesus did long ago…we participate now in Jesus’ life, suffering, death and resurrection!

We do what Jesus did and does… and we find him joining us in that whole range from suffering and death to life and resurrection.

In some ways, life with Jesus has a little bit of Lent and a little bit of Easter all the time. (Sort of reminds me of the old Donny and Marie show…”I’m a little bit Lent…and I’m a little bit Easter.” Never mind.)

Like so many things in life, we get messed up when we just focus on one or the other.

Some people or churches have too much focus on the suffering and the giving up and the sacrificing part of following Jesus, forgetting that every good gift comes from God….forgetting that we live our lives serving the one who has already defeated death and gives the power of his Spirit to all who believe.

And we all know those on the other end of the spectrum, those who don’t want any restraints, never want to give up or suffer or have discipline in any way.

The season of Lent is a good reminder that Jesus asked us to take up his cross and count the cost of serving him. Especially in a culture of excess, like ours, choosing to do without and to give things up for a time is incredibly important.

But now that Lent is over, how do we “re-enter” regular life? That’s been something I’ve given quite a bit of thought to in my own life. Did our giving up and digging in make any changes? Do we just “go back to normal,” or has God brought about changes that need to continue?

Here’s my case in point:

Is Diet Coke an evil to be resisted, or a good to enjoy? This, my friends, has been my deep examination for Lent.

Before Lent began, I noticed something. We have these cans in our office, and we can purchase them so easily…just put a little check mark by my name, and I can take and drink.

It was a matter of common joking around the office that I easily won the check contest each month. The little tally marks next to my name FAR exceeded everybody else’s. But when my monthly bills started exceeding $10, a quiet little alarm started going off in my head.

At 35 cents, that’s more than one can a day. But I’m not in the office every day, so really, it averaged out to about two cans a day.

But then you have to add in one other little bit of information. Did you know that if you ask for it, McDonald’s will give you a large Diet Coke for just 75 cents? I began supplementing the office refrigerator Diet Cokes with drive by shootings of Diet Coke from McDonald’s.

Then you add to that lunch appointments or dinner out where you have refillable Diet Cokes awaiting…an outside observer might just wonder if these were signs of a little bit of an addiction…

I often would say, “I could stop whenever I want…I just don’t want to.”

And besides, it wasn’t affecting me at all! No calories. And caffeine, caffeine doesn’t really affect me, either. I mean, I could drink one right before bed and just go right to sleep, it wasn’t affecting me at all.

But just to sort of, you know, prove the point that it wasn’t affecting me…I decided to give up all pop for Lent.

Yes, my friends, I looked straight into the eyes of the demon soft drink, and defied it.

It was not an easy battle. I can’t believe how many times I thought about having one. As the first days went by, I began to notice some other things.

I WAS affected by the caffeine after all. I went through the headache withdrawals, of course, but I noticed something else: I was absolutely exhausted at night. It wasn’t until the second week that I realized the connection: I had been pushing my way through life by pumping caffeine into my body. It wasn’t until I took it out of my life that I could hear what my body was saying to me, that I could hear how tired I was.

About two or three weeks into Lent, I sat down at the little blood pressure machine at Safeway…and realized my blood pressure had dropped about 20 points.

I didn’t realize the affect that Diet Coke was having on me until I chose to go cold turkey from it for awhile.

They say that it takes at least 21 days to establish a habit, and Lent is more than two times as long as that. I found myself thinking about what to do with my discoveries after Lent was over.

Should I never have Diet Coke again? Is that what it means to follow Christ, to always deny, never enjoy? Or, now that Lent is over and we live in the hope of Easter, are “all things permissible?”

Now we’re getting to a very important, fundamental question.

And if you would, let’s use my addiction to Diet Coke as something that stands for bigger, more important things. Is following Jesus about giving up, like monks who choose to suffer all the time? Or does the resurrection mean we have complete freedom, to live and enjoy and celebrate hope?

Obviously, it depends. In the case of Diet Coke, some might decide that there’s nothing healthy about soda and decide to give it up altogether. Others might decide with no calories, it isn’t all that bad in itself, it’s just the addiction or the abuse of it that is a problem.

What I want to do is help us think through how to take what we experienced in Lent and not just have it evaporate.

Some of us gave up bad things for Lent. Some gave up smoking, others gave up critical words…in the case of things that are unequivocally bad for us, maybe the experiment of Lent gives us the hope and encouragement to make a permanent break. Some things need to be put to death forever.

Some of us gave up good things for Lent. Several people fasted altogether one day each week. We can’t permanently give up all food without dying. The experiment of showing we can do without even a good thing was a good one to do. Now, after Easter, we can with a clear conscience wholeheartedly enjoy what we set aside.

Life with God is not just about self-denial. It is perfectly right and appropriate to enjoy the good things in life, to celebrate the creation God has made.

I would guess that most of us gave up something like Diet Coke is for me.

It’s not in itself such a bad thing here and there, but in the quantities I was drinking it and the addiction I built for it, it was unhealthy.

So I’ve found myself realizing that the experiment of Lent has helped me now, back in “regular life.”

I’ve made myself a pretty simple rule that allows me to enjoy it, but has some clear boundaries to keep from abusing it. Since Easter and now on into the future, I can only drink it with meals, not as a drink during the day, and I can’t ever drink it by myself.

It really is a frivolous example…life is about far more important things than Diet Coke. But I’ve chosen to use this part of my Lent experiment as a way to help us think through the more significant issues.

We’ve shown ourselves we can give something up.

Not only that, but many of us spent more time in daily bible reading. Many of us spent time examining our lives and finding out what was important, rather than just living life as it comes.

We’ve done a good thing! And I think it’s important to think through what parts of our Lent experiment we want to keep as a part of our lives. Not because we can never enjoy life as a Christian, not because life with God always means saying no.

I’ll say it again: it is appropriate and right and good to enjoy the good gifts that God brings!

But life isn’t just about enjoyment. We are joining Jesus in everything, in his suffering and death as well as his life and resurrection.

Romans 6, which we read together earlier, has shaped my thinking in good ways this week.

Paul reminds us that the incredible power of Easter, the breaking of the power of death and sin, was not just so that we can indulge in whatever behavior we want.

No, even in our Easter lives, a little Lent comes in. Even in our ability to live life as it was meant to be lived, in the power of Christ’s resurrection, a little bit of discipline is required.

Paul uses baptism to make an amazing point: we join Christ in his death, in order that we can join Christ in the resurrection as well. Quakers don’t have a regular practice of using water for baptism, but our understanding of baptism exactly fits what Paul is saying here.

Baptism is a total immersion of our lives with Christ. Our lives are to be lived dying to sin and living for God!

We’ve joined Christ!

We died and suffered with him, in order to live, to be alive. We want to live! To really live means knowing when we need to put things to death, and when to really enjoy and celebrate. The experience of setting aside even a good thing for a time is helpful. It’s always helpful to set aside harmful things.

But we can also enjoy, celebrate, live life with an “aliveness” that pleases and honors God.

My prayer and hope after Lent and after Easter is the same as it was before we began the Lent experiment.

My prayer is that we live this out: “At the very heart of the Christian faith is our common participation in the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and Spirit-giving of Jesus Christ.”