Entering Lent

Today is the start of Lent, a 40 day period of spiritual focus that is leading up to Easter. First, some background...

The season of Lent foretold the celebration of Holy Week [for the people of God]. Holy Week consisted of the seven days leading up to Easter Sunday, beginning with Palm Sunday, passing through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The forty days leading up to Easter Sunday constituted Lent. In the earliest days of Christianity (we’re talking the first three hundred or so years), Lent was a time of preparation for unbaptized converts, to Christianity. During Lent, the elders of the local church instructed [them] in the basics of the Apostolic Faith. On Easter Sunday, [they] would be baptized as the sun rose in the morning. As they were baptized, they would face eastwards and renounce the darkness. Too bad we don’t do things like that anymore. Lent is commonly associated with fasting and repentance. Fasting over a period of forty days is something that occurs with great regularity in Scripture. Moses did it when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law. Jesus did it as well. Fasting is a much-neglected spiritual discipline in our modern world of fast food and instant gratification, and we would do well to start practicing it once again. Of course, fasting is very tightly bound to repentance. The focus of Lent is repentance. Again, many of us are confused about repentance. Some of us think of it as “penance,” that is, atoning for our sins with acts of contrition. But that is not repentance. We can’t atone for what we have done and need not try. Jesus’ work on the cross is our atonement. Some of us think of repentance as sorrow and shame for what we have done, but that is also inaccurate. Repentance is literally to “change your mind.” In the famous words of Dallas Willard, “To reconsider your strategy for living based on the news of God’s Kingdom that is available in Jesus.” And that is what Lent is for, to reconsider your strategy for living. To begin a new process of deep consideration and reflection about your life. To reconsider what it means to follow Jesus, to plumb the mystery of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To reconsider what your strategy for living should be, based on this good news. And it all begins with this: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You are not an angel. You are not a mere soul or disembodied spirit. You are human, you are mortal, you are deeply dependent on the God who formed your body from the humus of the earth and breathed life into you with his kiss. God has come to you, in Jesus, O Creature, and called you to have life eternal with him [1][2].

For Lent, I decided to forego all the slide backgrounds for our worship PowerPoint slides for the next 7 weeks, sort of a corporate fast. Personally, I am going join my boss at work this year (he’s a devout Catholics) in giving up coffee and to reflect on my strategy for living instead. Let’s see how it is... [1][2] From my prof. http://bolsinger.blogs.com/weblog/2005/02/dirty_foreheads_1.html and his friend http://dulciusexasperis.com/2005/02/02/forget-40-days-of-purpose-try-lent-instead