Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: Why Lent matters

Lynne Baab • Tuesday March 25 2025

Do you know the word “chiaroscuro”? It came to English from Italian 300 years ago. In Italian, it means light-dark. For visual artists and those who love visual art, chiaroscuro matters a lot. Dark sections of a painting make the light places stand out. Take a look at the painting by my beloved husband, Dave, that illustrates this post. The painting would lose its punch without the dark sections. All paintings need contrast, even ones that aren’t as dramatic as the one I chose for this post.

I have come to believe that the concept of chiaroscuro can help us look at our lives with new insight. And how we view Lent relates to chiaroscuro. (Lent, this year, goes from March 5 to Easter on April 20, which is also Earth Day.)

Here’s the story of how the relationship between chiaroscuro and Lent became real to me. I was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1997, and soon after that, I had a conversation about Lent with the senior minister at the church where I was an associate pastor. He told me he’d read an interesting article about why Lent was irrelevant, and he gave me a copy of the article.

I pondered that article for a long time. The author talked about the fact that post-resurrection, we should focus on Jesus’s triumph over death, sin, evil, and Satan. All that negative power has been broken in Jesus’s resurrection, the author said, and we need to center our thoughts on that amazing gift. Lent, the author said, focuses too much on the negative — Jesus’s painful journey to the cross — and we are called to think about the positive. Every day should be a day of joy and celebration of God’s power over the forces of evil.

The article reminded me of the issues raised in Romans 7 and 8. In Romans 7, Paul describes his inner battle. He says he wants to follow God and do good things, but he also feels pulled in another direction: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it” (verses 15 and 18).  He goes on to say that he delights in God’s law in his inner being, but he also experiences himself as captive to sin (verses 22 and 23).

Then he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who can rescue from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verses 24 and 25). Paul goes on in chapter 8 to describe what the rescued life can be like in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I believe we live in the tension of Romans 7 and Romans 8. Both are true. We still fight our inner drives to do things we know are counterproductive for us and the people around us. This tension between the sin at work in us and the triumph of Jesus over sin is a real and pervasive part of life on Earth, even life as a follower of Jesus. It’s sad. It’s hard. It takes continued effort and reliance on the Holy Spirit to trust God in the midst of inner forces pulling us elsewhere. But there are moments — many wonderful moments — when God’s power does break into our lives, and we experience God’s joy, peace, and hope.

To argue, as the author of that article on Lent did, that Jesus’s triumph over sin, death, and the devil is fully realized on Earth is inaccurate and destructive. It’s simply not true, and it damages Christians to have the expectation that because they now follow Jesus, everything will go well in their inner being.

I’ve struggled with food, eating, and weight for decades. It’s gotten better. God has brought remarkable healing, but the inner battle of thinking that food will solve emotional issues still rages within me sometimes. The fact that this battle still recurs is sad and hard. It takes constant trust in God and constant reliance on the Holy Spirit to fight those inner voices. And there are moments — many wonderful moments — when God’s power does break into my life. Food tastes great, I stop eating when I’ve had enough, and I experience God’s joy, peace, and hope related to food and my body.

Chiaroscuro describes the strong contrasts of light and dark that make paintings come alive. A painting with even tones doesn’t work very well. My life is full of chiaroscuro, and the dark and light are both at work within me. The dark reveals the beauty and value of the light. I know the light is triumphing and will one day triumph completely. Lent provides us the opportunity to journey with Jesus to the cross, to focus on those places within us where our own inner voices battle with our desire to follow and obey God, to feel sad about this inner darkness and mourn, knowing that God’s resurrection power is also at work in us.

I long for the time described in Revelation 21 and 22, where God’s light will permeate everything. Chiaroscuro will no longer be needed or relevant. I don’t know how we will be able to appreciate the light without some shadows and darkness. Maybe our memories of this place of sorrow will be enough to help us sing for joy in the presence of God’s light. In the days of this earthly life, with more darkness than I want to experience, I long for true, total, all-encompassing light. Amen, come Lord Jesus.

O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment (Psalm 104:1-2). In our moments of darkness, wrap us in your light. Bright morning star, illuminate our nights. Word of God, when we see dimly, be the lamp to our feet and the light to our path (Psalm 119:105). Use the dark patches in our lives to help us notice and rejoice in your light. In our journey to Easter this year, help us enter into the sadness and grief of your path to the cross and prepare us for the place where your light shines in fullness.

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Next week: Freedom from fear of death. Illustration by Dave Baab: sunrise at the Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand.

You may enjoy:

• Facing the inner darkness
• Be the gardener of my soul
• All will be well

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Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her two 2024 books, both of them illustrated with her talented husband Dave's watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed books, and in the kindle versions, if read on a phone, the watercolors glow. Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide guides the reader into new ways to pray about the topics in the title. Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional guides the reader to a psalm for each day of Lent and offers insightful reflection/discussion questions that can be used alone or in groups. 

Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian  Life, available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her most popular book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.

Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

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"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
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