Lengthening LENT

I have a personal fascination with commemorative events on the Christian calendar.

There is just something beautiful about walking through certain events in the life of Jesus when He was on earth – His birth, death, resurrection and ascension, or understanding the symbolic practices the Jewish people carried out in remembrance of God’s deliverance and faithfulness. Significant dates are made all the richer when time is taken to fully appreciate the history behind and cultural context that surrounded them!

Furthermore, the stipulated period of time leading up to an event, as opposed to just a single day, gives me the much-needed time in reflection and preparation before the oft-busy season descends on the church.

It hardly seemed two months ago that Advent preceded Christmas, and now we are already into the second week of Lent.

Lent what, you may ask?

Foreign as this term may be to some of us, Lent actually is one of the oldest observations on the Christian calendar. Historically in Western Christianity, Lent is the 40-day period, not counting Sundays, lasting from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. This is a time set aside in preparation for Easter, to be spent in quiet self-examination and repentance of sin, demonstrated by self-denial of some form – usually fasting. These forty days are an imitation of Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days before He was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-2).

Lent is more commonly observed by churches with a more liturgical tradition, while it comes and goes without a mention for others. Although we may frown upon the ritualistic observances and mandatory adherence to a fast that are practiced in some places, Lent can possibly be adopted as a useful period for reflection and taking stock for us. It offers us ways to ‘lengthen’ the Good Friday and Easter season through the time of meditation on the deep significance of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection for our own lives and for the world.

For the more convicted, this might be an appropriate time to be involved in prayer and daily fasting. For others, it might be a call to give up a coffee or meal each week or even ‘fasting’ from the media such as television, computer games, or lifestyle magazines. Quite often, our bodily appetites control our actions. The purpose of fasting is to make our bodily appetites our servant rather than our master. The emphasis ought not to be so much on the fasting in and of itself, as on the spiritual renewal desired as Easter approaches through the cultivation of humility and reliance on the Father. The purpose of Lent is fulfilled when the desire is created in us to do God’s will and to make His kingdom come by making it come first of all in our hearts.

Today in our day, age, and church culture, Lent can become a purposeful time when material things are put again in their proper secondary position; when we make the effort to adjust our lenses to sharpen our ability to see the spiritual in our daily lives. If we missed the opportunity twice over in the new years recently passed to contemplate the year past and set resolutions, this can be an opportune time to take that long overdue spiritual inventory as we reflect upon our present position in the journey and double-check our directions. However, more than just mental resolutions to do better, this time of personal readjustment can be about yielding ourselves afresh to the God who demands to be obeyed, and identifying again with the Saviour who makes all things new…

Go ahead and take up the challenge to spend protected time with the Lord in the days leading up to Easter beginning today. Give something up, or simplify an area of life. And in doing so, not let the busyness of our lives and the season be yet another excuse for the irony of missing the very One we want to celebrate and worship.

35 Days to Easter!