Lenten Revival

What would it mean for us to experience revival along our Lenten journey? We have a tendency to equate emotion in a church setting with the “moving of God’s Spirit.” We seem to think that an emotional reaction to music, a sermon, a prayer, or some other element in a church setting points to a special action of the Spirit. The closest we ever come to that in the Hebrew Scriptures is a sense of dread falling upon a group of people. In no case does Scripture link such emotional experiences with a moving of the Spirit.

Revival is not tied to emotion. Emotion is not a manifestation of God’s Spirit, presence, or action in our lives. There were bands of ecstatic “prophets” in Ancient Israel. The only mention of them is in regard to Saul losing his mind in an ecstatic trance. The story includes a bit of skepticism, asking, “Is Saul now among the prophets?” Rather than being a staunch servant of Yahweh, Saul turns out to be an obstruction to Yahweh and Yahweh’s purposes. That emotional experience did not point to any special anointing of God. In counterpoint, Paul tells the Corinthian church that the Spirit brings understanding and order, not an ecstatic experience.

Contrary to allowing emotional experiences guide us, we have been given self-control along with the Spirit. To guide our lives with self-control requires setting aside emotion to think through a proper response. Emotions and gut reactions have to do with things that are closer to instinctive reactions. The things of God require a different perspective. They require self-control. They require thoughtful submission of our will to God’s. They require that we base our lives and direction on much more than any emotional response, even when that response is to music in worship or words from the pulpit.

I’ve been to numerous revivals in my life. I went to revival services during summers in Mississippi. I interpreted for revival services with partnership mission teams in Brazil. I participated in “Spiritual Emphasis Weeks” during high school. I engaged revival speakers to lead services at a church I served as pastor. I led similar events at other churches as the featured speaker. Along the way, I determined that while some good came of those services and events, it was little more than I would expect from any other regular service in the same setting. There was no lasting effect one could attribute to these revivals that pointed to any special move of God’s Spirit.

Along the way, I experienced people using revival services to emotionally manipulate a crowd and coerce them to take some particular action. These were very emotional events, but other than a visible manipulated and temporary response, there was little to show for them. They did not lead to transformed living, to justice, to mercy, to love on a larger scale. Some might gather a following this way, but these followers were generally seeking one more emotional experience they might interpret as spiritual, as God being personally involved in their lives in that particular moment. Once the emotional high faded, they need another dose.

If that’s not what revival is, what does revival actually look like?

The best description we have in the Scriptures comes from Acts 4. This revival began with God’s deliverance of Peter and John. When they gave witness to the community of God’s deliverance, they prayed for boldness in speaking God’s word, while God took care of any special signs along the way. It then tells us the community of believers began living according to new norms they had learned in Jesus’ teachings. They gave up the idea of private ownership. They adopted a new understanding that all anyone had was for the benefit of the whole. God’s grace was visible among them as within this community no one was left in need. This transformation led to an expansion of the gospel in the larger world around them.

Revival calls us to transformed living. It calls us to set aside the things of earth, the things of culture, tradition, society, and how the world around us has instructed us to live. Revival calls us to live new lives based upon the principles of the gospel in complete dependence on God. In that dependence, it calls us to bear witness for what God is doing and desires to do in our lives and in the lives of all. Revival requires an expansion of our concept of community, such that any and all are fully included such that another’s needs become as pressing for me as my own.

Is that not how Jesus modeled the Reign of God in our midst? He came and gave himself up for our benefit at great personal cost. When he fed the multitudes, there was food left over for each of the disciples. There is no mention of food for him. His journey to the cross led to our redemption, not his own, nor to some ecstatic experience of God. Revival would require us to lay down our lives to take up a new way of living. It requires dying to self that Christ might grant us new life. Revival requires out transformation. Is that what we are seeking?

— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 

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