Lent–Season of – What Does This Mean?

Encore Post: Ash Wednesday works like kind of a speed bump in the lives of Christians. After celebrating the birth of Jesus, listening to the ways in which God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, seeing him in his full glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, we’re tempted to bask in the glory of God’s grace and love. Yet still our stubborn, Old Adam or Old Eve clings to us and threatens to take over our lives. Lest we forget, Lent comes to help us discipline ourselves, repent of our sin and live life, trusting in God and his promises. Ash Wednesday greets us with the words God spoke to Adam — and to us — when imposing the curse that resulted from the first sin: “Remember that your are dust and to the dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)

This phrase is a part of the ancient discipline of remembering mortality. (Memento mori — “Remember death”) It is the conscious meditation on the cold, hard truth that all the pleasures and blessings of life are temporary and that death comes to all of us, often suddenly. Ash Wednesday calls on us to stop what we are doing, consider the damage our sin does in our lives — both now and eternally. The collect for the day sets the tone: “Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Repentance is more than saying you’re sorry. The Greek word the New Testament uses for repentance is μετάνοια means “to completely change your mind.” It includes recognizing your sins, being sorry for them and to stop doing them. All of this is only possible for Christians because it is the work of the Holy Spirit that makes us holy. Ash Wednesday wakes us up, reminds us how to use the disciplines of fasting, prayer and meditation, gives us the forgiveness of sins through confession, absolution and the Lord’s Supper. It sets the tone for our forty day meditation. It marks our sorrow with the ashes of the palms from the previous Palm Sunday and with the sign of the Holy Cross, reminds us of the redemption that is ours in the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

May God grant you a blessed meditation on the suffering and death of Jesus that you will be well prepared to celebrate with joy the coming Easter celebration.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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 with the beginning of Lent, they would spend forty days fasting. By the time of the Reformation, the season of Lent had become a very somber time of self-denial, where repentance, meditation upon the sufferings and death of Jesus, dominated the everyday life 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 way of looking at Lent is very different from the way it was seen during 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 to baptize new Christians moved early on 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 are always a celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, they would not fast on the 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 in repentance for sins with Ash Wednesday, it continues in quiet reflection on the basic teachings of the Christian faith. When the Church comes to Holy Week, then it turns to be a witness to the events of our salvation, leading us to Easter and the joy of the resurrection of our Lord and the promise of everlasting life it brings.

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

Tag: Lent–Season of

Remember that You Are Dust…

The Season of Lent