I have a blogging tradition for the day after Ash Wednesday, which is the second day of Lent (Ash Wednesday being the first). I put up a simple piece explaining the meaning and practices of Lent. This year's piece is similar to ones I've written before.
I write about the meaning of Lent every year because this season of the church year is unfamiliar to many, including many Christians. But I write not only to explain, but also to invite you to experience God in a deeper and distinctive way. This, I believe, is one of the promises of Lent.
Growing up as an evangelical Christian, I experienced Lent as little more than a joke. "What are you giving up for Lent?" my friends would ask. "Homework," I'd say with a smirk, or "Obeying my parents." Lent was one of those peculiar practices demanded of Roman Catholics - another great reason to be Protestant, I figured. It never even occurred to me that Lent was something I might actually be interested in, or benefit from.
In the last fifteen years I've discovered that Lent is in fact recognized by millions of Protestant Christians, in addition to Catholic and Orthodox believers. (The Eastern Orthodox Lent is longer than the Catholic or Protestant Lent, and it begins before Ash Wednesday.) Lent (the word comes from the Middle English word for "spring") is a six-week season in the Christian year prior to Easter. (Technically, Lent comprises the 40 days before Easter, not counting the Sundays, or 46 days in total.)
In the ancient church, Lent was a time for new converts to be instructed for baptism and for believers caught in sin to focus on repentance. In time, all Christians came to see Lent as a season to be reminded of their need for penitence and to prepare spiritually for the celebration of Easter. Part of this preparation involved the Lenten "fast," giving up something special during the six weeks of Lent (but not on Sundays, in some traditions. Lent lasts for forty days, but the Sundays in Lent are not counted in the forty.).
Many Protestants rejected the practice of Lent, pointing out, truly, that it was nowhere required in Scripture. Some of these Protestants were also the ones who refused to celebrate Christmas, by the way. They wanted to avoid some of the excessive aspects of Catholic penitence that tended to obscure the gospel of grace. These Protestants saw Lent, at best, as something completely optional for believers, and, at worst, as a superfluous Catholic practice that true believers should avoid altogether.
Some segments of Protestantism did continue to recognize a season of preparation for Easter, however. Their emphasis was not so much on penitence and fasting as on intentional devotion to God. Protestant churches sometimes added special Lenten Bible studies or prayer meetings so that their members would be primed for a deeper experience of Good Friday and Easter. Lent was a season to do something extra for God, not to give something up.
After ignoring Lent for the majority of my life, I've paid more attention to it during the last decade. Sometimes I've given up something, like watching television or eating sweets, in order to devote more time to Bible study and prayer. (The television fast was especially tough because I love watching March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, on TV.) Sometimes I've added extra devotional reading to my regular spiritual disciplines. I can't claim to have had any mystical experiences during Lent, but I have found that fasting from something has helped me appreciate more deeply the meaning of the cross and the victory of the resurrection. Before I began honoring Lent, Good Friday and Easter always seemed to rush by before I could give them the attention they deserved. Now I find myself much more ready to meditate upon the depth of Christ's sacrifice and to celebrate his victory over sin and death on Easter.
Lent is not a requirement for Christians. But millions of us - Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Independent - have found that recognizing the season of Lent enriches our worship and deepens our faith.
A Lenten Discipline
If you don't do so already, I would encourage you to read one of the Psalms each day during Lent, prayerfully and reflectively. Make this psalm a basis for your daily prayers. If you'd like some encouragement in this exercise, I'd recommend my devotional psalm website, The Daily Psalm. For the first part of Lent, the psalms will run in order, though I'll approach them with a Lenten mindset. During the last two weeks of Lent the psalms will be chosen for their Lenten themes.
No matter how it happens, I pray that the next six weeks will be for you a time of preparation, so that you might be ready for a truer, deeper, and richer experience of God's love on Good Friday and Easter.
Recent Comments