To Lent or Not to Lent?
You probably know that Lent is the season leading up to Easter – 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday. Sundays don’t count, because every Sunday is a “little Easter,” a reminder of the joy of resurrection. In the very earliest church, Lent was a time for new Christians to prepare for baptism on Easter morning, a time of learning about the Christian faith. Sometime after the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, Lent also became a time of penance and fasting for all Christians, to prepare for the observance of Christ’s passion and resurrection. Christians were not allowed to eat meat or eggs or cheese or fats or sweets during Lent, which was handy because (in the days before canning and freezers) by springtime, not much of that was left from the previous year’s harvest anyway. So, Christians ate a lot of unbuttered bread and salted fish and prayed for Easter to arrive.
​
I grew up in a Presbyterian church in Texas that did not observe Lent at all – or Advent either, for that matter. As a child, I was taught to view these penitential seasons as something for Catholics, not something that applied to Protestants like us. We didn’t prepare for Easter with solemn Lenten services focused on the coming Crucifixion, and we also didn’t have a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service. So, we could whiz right past the Crucifixion, hardly noticing that it was there at all. Easter seemed to be the happy ending to a story that was missing its central drama.
Sometime in my middle adult years, mainline Protestant churches like ours began to see the value of liturgical seasons. We started to use colored paraments (banners and pulpit drapes) and vestments (the pastor’s stoles) to signal the changes in the church calendar. This connected us to the wider church and it brought a richness to worship that appealed to the physical senses. Churches from the Reformed tradition, like ours, usually did not go so far as to require – or even encourage –fasting and other penance, but Lent nevertheless became a thing for us, too.
Today, I find that I am a little torn about Lent. In the period leading up to Easter, I want each Sunday to continue to be the joyful celebration of the Living God. But I do find it meaningful to pause on Ash Wednesday to be reminded that I am mortal. I don’t fast during Lent, and I have to admit that this is because I am in the privileged position of having a refrigerator and a grocery store and enough money to get what appeals to me. Others are not so fortunate. I prefer to put off the heavy contemplation of the Cross until Holy Week, but I don’t want us to skip it then. I want us all to come to the Maundy Thursday service and face that part of our story together. So, I have chosen to tiptoe into Lent. I don’t wear it heavily, but I wear it nonetheless.
As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we each have the authority and the responsibility to make these choices for ourselves. We can ignore Lent altogether, and we would have historical and theological justification for that choice. We can go all-in, and be deeply connected to another strand of Christian history. Or we can put a toe in the water, taking the parts that are meaningful for us and leaving the rest. Any of these choices is appropriate, so long as we make it thoughtfully, prayerfully. How do you approach Lent? Does Lent mean anything to you at all? Do you give something up for Lent or volunteer for additional service in Jesus’ name during this time? I would love to hear your answers!
​
Pastor Cathy