Lent: Who Needs It?

So now begin the violet days, days of bruises and honour, the time of “bright sadness,” the season of Lent.

What is Lent?

The word “Lent” has nothing to do with “lending.” It is the season of the church year anticipating Easter—and the great days following that greatest of days. Christianity grew up largely in the Mediterranean and in Europe, so lent comes from words for spring. As Easter marks the renewal of the world in the resurrection of our Lord, so the time leading up to it is the time of transition.

In the early church, the season was just the few days leading up to Easter. By the Council of Nicea (AD 325), however, it had become 40 days long—so the Latin term for it is Quadragesima and Romance languages continue to call it that (thus the French carême). In the West, it lasts from Ash Wednesday until Holy Thursday (Roman Catholic) or Holy Saturday (Protestant). The difference in the numbers comes from discounting Sundays (still days of rejoicing!) as days free of fasting.

Forty days is a fine Bible number, of course. Moses was 40 days on Sinai with Yhwh. Elijah prepared for 40 days before the great confrontation on Mount Carmel. Pre-eminently, Jesus himself fasted for 40 days between his baptism and his temptation by the devil.

Lent thus serves two forms of preparation. The first is the preparation of new believers for baptism. Easter has always been seen as a glorious day for baptisms—although it was not standard in the early church, as used to be thought. The second is the preparation of older believers for the commemoration of Holy Week and the climactic celebration of Easter.

In sum, Lent is about spiritual preparation for a time of intense focus on the Lord. It is time for sweeping out the house and readying it for divine visitation and celebration.

Why not Lent?

Some Christians, however, are wary of Lent. In Latin American countries, Lent is preceded by the 40 days of Carnival season—from Epiphany (January 6) until Ash Wednesday. In the southern hemisphere, it is harvest season, and Lent fell on days traditionally devoted to harvest festivals.

The Spanish regime first tried merely to suppress the folk rituals. When that failed, syncretism resulted. Local deities took on the names and faces of saints. Parades formerly in their honour now sported crosses and other Christian paraphernalia.

The Virgin Mary typically took pride of place. But most of us think of Carnival in terms not immediately reminiscent of Mary: salacious costumes, wild dancing, intense music, and nonstop revelry. Serious Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, generally stay away. The conflict of spiritual forces takes place not just in the street drama, but in reality as well.

The season leading up to Lent concludes with Shrove Tuesday, from the ritual of confessing sins and being shriven = “absolved.” Alas, by the middle ages the focus of Lent itself was so heavily upon fasting, rather than on praying, that Shrove Tuesday became the last day to enjoy oneself before the grim days ahead.

All the rich foods not to be eaten during the fast—milk, eggs, sugar, meat—were thus turned into feasts. Hence “Pancake Tuesday” or, yes, “Fat Tuesday”—which is to say in French, Mardi Gras.

Should conscientious Christians stay away from Lent also?

The question would seem absurd to most Christians today. Roman Catholics and Orthodox observe it worldwide. Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, and many other Protestants observe it as well.

The Reformed tradition is conspicuous, therefore, in its resistance. John Calvin speaks against it in his major theological work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, and one can readily see why.

The medieval religion Calvin was intent on reforming had turned Lent, like the whole economy of faith, into a transaction. Behave yourself for 40 days according to the strictures of the Church and you would receive commensurate blessing—especially reduced time in purgatory.

Calvin, like the other Reformers, rejected anything approaching good works as meritorious, as making a claim on God: “I did this good thing, God, so you must reward me.” He and those in his train tended then to reject everything in the religion of their day that wasn’t expressly taught in Scripture. (Lutherans, Anglicans, and others saw sola scriptura differently: anything not forbidden in Scripture could be approved, so long as it proved to be edifying.)

The Puritan tradition was strongly Calvinistic. Most Baptists (and English Baptists were originally Puritans) therefore don’t observe Lent. Neither do the anti-liturgical Anabaptists, and other so-called low churches—which includes the charismatic and Pentecostal traditions.

Still, as a low-churchman myself, I suggest that we do not have to observe Lent, but we may. And I think we should.

Enjoying Lent

Our Lutheran siblings helpfully specify three “pillars” of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. If we alter that order, we see that fasting is in the service of both prayer and charity.

Christian fasting needs careful definition here, since it is widely misunderstood. It is, as Calvin warned, not meritorious work in search of divine reward. Nor is it merely giving up something bad: “I’ll give up swearing for Lent!” Anything you should stop doing you should try to stop doing now.

Modern churches don’t exact nearly the rigours they used to. Indeed, in very modern churches, it’s up to you what to give up for Lent. So pick something.

What something? Give up something that will open a space in your schedule and your mind to look forward to Holy Week. Busy people, and I think especially of parents with children at home, might groan to think of Lent as a time for yet another duty added to an overfull schedule. Instead, make room for prayer by giving up something normally unobjectionable.

How about less time on social media? Less time aimlessly scrolling?

How about praying during your commute? Washing the dishes? Shoveling the snow?

And if you give up something material—like expensive coffee or other treats—then divert that saved money to charity.

Preparation is the centre of Lent, not fasting or some other deprivation. (If you think that way, you start down the road toward Carnival’s foolish compensation.) Lent is a season of greater focus than usual on spiritual and moral renewal in order to prepare for Easter, a season of greater focus than usual on celebration.

(Not incidentally, Easter is truly a season. It’s what liturgists call an octave: eight days, Sunday to Sunday, of feasting. See how your enjoyment of God increases by adding these eight days, plus the twelve days of Christmas, to your own year!)

The overall aim of Lent is not grim, but serious. We are getting ready to celebrate the Great Days that changed the world: Passion Week, Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost, with Trinity Sunday the send-off to “ordinary time” until Advent.

Lent is for life changing. For world changing. Don’t let these days find you clued out, and flat, and then embarrassed because you were unprepared.

How to Prepare

Matthew 3:1–12:

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way for the Lord,    make straight paths for him.’”

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John preaches repentance. What he means goes far beyond saying you’re sorry in a brief moment of regret. Repentance is metanoia, literally a “change of mind”—of heart, of one’s core self, of one’s life.

It means to get your act together. To fix what’s wrong. John is severe with the religious professionals who take comfort in their distinguished heritage. God, John says, wants to see what you’re doing now. Where is the fruit of your piety?

Watch out, John says, because the Lord is coming. And when Jesus comes, he won’t tell you merely to straighten up. He will put you through Spiritual fire: to test you, purify you, and, if you survive, empower you.

So, indeed, John says, echoing Isaiah, straighten out the kinks in your life that impede the flow of the Holy Spirit. Make it easier for God to indwell you, to use you, to enjoy you. Get yourself ready to receive again a fresh season of worship and blessing.

In your daily exercises of preparation, then, let me recommend two sets of resources. Richard Foster’s organization Renovaré and Steve Bell’s repertoire of the Pilgim Year contain bountiful aids to devotion.

Above all, and in all, ask the Holy Spirit for direction. You can’t fix everything at once. (Let’s face it: There’s too much wrong with you yet for God to work on all fronts simultaneously!) So what does the Spirit in his kind wisdom want to work on with you this season?

Ask for direction, yes, but also ask for fire. Ask for power to heal and power to change. What needs to be done cannot be done properly on your own.

Finally, enjoy the fast. Let it remind you daily to pray. Let it move you to prayer and charity. Think of how we give gifts at Christmas to each other in honour of Christ. Why not give gifts to Christ’s church and to the needy of Christ’s world at Easter?

Taking Lent seriously means we take Easter seriously—we take Jesus seriously. Who needs Lent? Perhaps you do. The world certainly does.

May we have a Lenten season full of the fire of the Holy Spirit—and a glorious Eastertide to follow!

May the God of all mercy pity us and mercifully forgive the sins of all who are penitent:

May he renew in us contrite hearts, that we, properly lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain from our generous God perfect remission of our sins, healing of our souls, and amendment of our lives—

that we may glorify him forever, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.