Easter – What Does This Mean?

The Season of Lent

Encore Post: “Mardi Gras” — “Fat Tuesday” or “Carnival” — “Farewell to meat” — are names given to the days full of parties just before Lent. In Christian countries, people celebrated these days, knowing that the beginning of Lent meant they would spend forty days fasting. By the time of the Reformation, Lent had become a somber season of self-denial, with repentance and meditation on the sufferings and death of Jesus dominating the everyday lives of Christians. In order to earn some merit before God, the serious believer would not only fast, but give alms to the poor, go on pilgrimages, and do anything they thought would please God.

This approach to Lent differs significantly from how it was understood in the Early Church. The season arose as a part of the process of becoming a Christian. A new convert to the faith spent forty days being taught the basic truths of God’s word, especially about the life, sufferings, and death of the Lord Jesus. Forty days is the symbolic period of testing, fasting, and discipline done to focus a believer’s mind on prayer and meditation on God’s word. Since the customary day for baptizing new Christians shifted from the day celebrating the Baptism of our Lord to the Vigil of Easter (Holy Saturday), catechumens (new Christians studying the faith) and their Catechists (teachers of the faith) would fast the forty weekdays prior to Easter each year. Since Sundays always celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, they do not fast on Sundays. They found the practice to be a great blessing, and so the whole church soon began to fast with them. Ash Wednesday, therefore, begins Lent, which lasts until Holy Saturday.

Lutherans reformed the practice of Lent so that, rather than being a season of sorrow, it is a season of discipline. Beginning with repentance for sins on Ash Wednesday, it continues with quiet reflection on the basic teachings of the Christian faith. When the Church comes to Holy Week, it becomes a witness to the events of our salvation, leading us to Easter and the joy of our Lord’s resurrection, and to the promise of everlasting life it brings.

For the most part, we will use this Lent to discuss the basics of the faith, as Martin Luther explains them in the Small Catechism. May God bless you as you meditate and pray during this season of Lent.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Stay with Us, Lord, for it is Evening

[Ninety-One in a series of posts on Bible Stories] Encore Post: Today, our Easter celebration of the resurrection is filled with joy. White paraments, flowers and banners decorate our churches. Well-practiced organs, choirs, and musical instruments of all kinds add to our song. After all, we know the story and how it ends. Jesus is risen!

The first Easter was quite different. Reports from women close to Jesus reported visions of angels and of the Lord himself. The disciples didn’t know what to think. The five accounts of that day show the confusion. (Matthew 28:1-15, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-49, John 20:1-23, 1 Corinthians 15:3-5) Different people were running all over the place, and each story is its own. One thing was for sure. The tomb was empty.

On the first Sunday afternoon, two disciples were on the road home, feeling very unsettled. Could it be true? Was the Lord really risen from the dead? Jesus appeared to them, but did not reveal himself to them. As they walked to Emmaus, Jesus showed them how the Old Testament pointed to him and that he had to suffer, die, and rise again from the dead. They invited him to stay with them for the evening. As they ate dinner, Jesus blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to them. They recognized him. He immediately vanished.

These two disciples immediately went back to Jerusalem to report to the disciples what had happened. There, they learned Jesus had appeared to Peter. As they were talking about this, Jesus removed all doubt. He appeared to them, ate some food to show them he was not a ghost, but had risen from the dead, body and soul. He then blessed the Apostles and gave them the power to forgive and retain sins.

When life gets confusing and we do not know what to do, Jesus comes to us in his word. Even though we do not see him, he is always with us. When we pray, “stay with us, Lord,” he does. We are never alone, even until the end of time itself.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Day of Resurrection

[Ninetieth in a series of posts on Bible Stories]Encore Post: He is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

In the silence of a cold, dark tomb, the world changed forever. Just as he promised, Jesus rose from his rest in the grave, breaking the seal of the tomb forever. And no one noticed.

The Romans were really good at torturing people to death. Crucifixion was a slow death, designed to kill with the maximum amount of pain and humiliation possible. If the Romans killed you, you were dead. Jesus, in fact, was already dead when the soldiers moved to hurry the process to get the bodies into a grave before sunset and the beginning of the Sabbath.

Once they laid Jesus in the tomb, no one expected him to go anywhere. Pilate ordered the tomb sealed by the authority of Rome, setting its seal on the stone that shut it off from the world. Had he not risen from death, the women would have completed his embalming, and they would have mourned him for seven days. After a year, they would gather his bones into a stone box. In fact, this is what Caiaphas’ family did. Archaeologists have found his box. Had he not risen, likely no one today would even know the name of Jesus.

But Jesus did rise from the dead. The seal of our graves is broken. When we die now, our spirits live with him until the last day. When Jesus returns. On that day, he will call our bodies from the grave, and a new creation will occur. We will finally be whole — our bodies — like his resurrected body, will be fit for eternal life. Death no longer has a sting. The grave will have no victory. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

That is why Easter strikes such a chord with Christians. It is why we greet each other with joy… Christ is risen…

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana