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Importance: 80%
The Big Idea
A personal observation of lent and its observance.
Note
- Used for LCOS đEpistle March 2025
- Posted to Substack as đEssay in its current state Feb 2025
I have never liked winter. The days are so short, and the outdoors seem to stay a consistent shade of bleh. Moving to Santa Maria California has significantly changed my experience of that seasonal gray. In fact, as I write this, a warm sun beam is happily playing through the window behind me. But regardless of what the physical seasons may do to you each year, we are quickly approaching a unique season within our Church year.
Lent is a season that seems to bring with it many memories (both good and bad) for those who have grown up with it. For those who are new to lent, it can feel a lot like the winter gray of the Church year. Afterall a whole forty days to be sad about our sin, or to give something up, or to come to church more? Why? What is the point of such a downer of a season?
Whether we are still holding on to feelings from the Super Bowl and thinking about next year. Or preparing for March Madness. Or if tax season is heavy on our minds. Or we already canât wait for summer to bring the end of school. All of us are getting ready for something. The church year invites us into a different way of thinking about our year and the changing seasons around us.
The name âLentâ is a derivative of an old Anglo-Saxon word âlenctenâ, which means the lengthening of the day as spring approaches. For Christians who lived in the 1st Century, Lent was only a period of 40 hours, in keeping with the 40 hours Jesusâ body was in the tomb. For these early Christians this was also the time period during which new Christians were baptized in order to symbolize being buried with Christ as they go into the water and rise to a new life with Him on Easter morning. But as with all things that surround liturgy and worship, as each generation heard and remembered the story of Easter the observance of lent took on different forms.
In the 3rd Century, the 40-hour observance was extended to 6 days, now known as âHoly Weekâ. During Holy Week we take time to remember the full story of Jesusâ passion leading us to the joy of Easter morning. As the centuries continued to unfold, the six days grew into 36 days, as a tithe of the 365 days of the year. In 731 A.D. four days were added to make the present season of 40 days. This was done in recognition of 40âs significance in the Bible. A few of these important connections are: Jesus was tempted for 40 days in the desert; Moses and Elijah each fasted 40 days; the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, etc.
Yet regardless of the length of Lent, Christians have uses it as a time to prepare ourselves to remember the incredible work of Jesus on the Cross and His glorious resurrection on Easter Morning. These central pieces of Jesusâ work are the fulfillment of not just some of the Old Testament, or a little bit of the New. No, Jesusâ death and resurrection are the entire center of all Scripture. In the same ways, we can use lent as a time to slow down from the constant distractions of the world around us. A time to remember one of Jesusâ shortest sermons:
âFrom that time Jesus began to preach, saying, âRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.ââ(Matthew 4:17)
A single, one line sermon, and yet these words of Jesus encapsulate the fullness of what Lent is intended to bring to our minds. Jesus is God, the Ruler Almighty, who brings His powerful kingdom into our broken and dying world. He interrupts, makes us pause (even makes us uncomfortable). He reminds us that we are sinners. And that no matter how hard we work, or what we do, we always fall short. But the promise Lent helps us remember is that when we stop, and repent, and come to Jesus. His kingdom is no longer just near us, or a little beyond our reach. No, Jesus gathers us in and makes us citizens of His heavenly Kingdom.
And so I invite you this Lenten season to remember Paulâs words:
âDo you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of lifeâ (Romans 6:3-4).
Lent may be a little bit of a downer. No one likes to think of their own sin or death. But if we allow ourselves to be uncomfortable before Jesus, bit by bit, He will open our eyes to the beauty of relying on Him. Because after all, when we peel back layer after layer of all the things we end up relying on, Jesus is the only one who will last.
Jesusâ kingdom is near! And so we come to Him.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done. Amen.