A Brief Overview of Lent

You are in charge of recruitment for the Christian Church a hundred years after Jesus’ death. Nobody is alive anymore who heard him speak. Even those whose parents did are dying out. Jesus hasn’t come back yet, and it is slowly dawning on folks that it might be a while before he does. In the meantime, you want people to be the very best Christians they can be. If they want to be baptized, you want them to understand just what they are getting into. What are you going to do?

You pick a date for baptism, say Easter, as a perfect time to enter into the new life of the risen Lord. How are you going to prepare folks for their Easter baptism? You create a prep-period. Let’s call it “Lent.” That’s what Lent was at first – the final home stretch of getting ready to be baptized, to enter the community of faith, the Body of Christ.

In a way, becoming a Christian was seen much like becoming a naturalized citizen of any country. In this case, you were becoming a citizen of God’s kingdom, of God’s reign, of God’s New Humanity in Christ. What do you do if you want to become a naturalized citizen of a country? You learn the history, you learn the key figures, you learn the events, you learn the symbols, you learn new words, you learn new ways to act, you learn the expectations, you learn a few rules. You study up, you practice, you might take a test, then you have some sort of ceremony which marks your entry into your new status as citizen of your new country. Lent became something very similar in those early days of the Church.

They learned the history of God-with-us from the scriptures of both Testaments. They learned Christian practices, such as prayer, fasting, forgiveness, service, worship, study. They learned the symbols: the Cross, baptismal water, bread and wine, the people gathered, and so on. They learned the faith: who God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are, the span of God’s dealing with humanity from Creation to the grand windup at the End, sin and salvation, the community of faith which is the living embodiment of Jesus Christ, and my own particular vocational role in God’s saving activity in this world. They learned new behaviors, new expectations, and practiced a new morality. By doing all this, gradually they merged the story of their life with the story of God-with-us. Lent was the time of making God’s vision for humanity their own: thought, word, and deed. Lent is the great remaking.

What about the penitential atmosphere in Lent? Where did that come from? During the great persecutions, people gave up the faith to avoid getting slaughtered. But later many regretted their failure of nerve and sincerely wanted to come back to Christianity. Some leaders refused to even consider the notion. They had made their decision to betray Christ, now those apostates must live with the consequences. No, they could never return to the Church. Other Christian leaders said, “You want to come back? Here’s what you must do to repent of your apostasy: you will study all over again, and by confession and service demonstrate your repentance. And after a period, you will be readmitted into our fellowship.” Penitence was the demonstration of faithfulness. Lent was the final period to demonstrate their sincere repentance. During the Middle Ages, the penitential side of Lent got way overblown, crowding out the preparation aspect. By now, Lent has declined to being a period where we play at being holy by “giving up” something (that may or may not matter to us), or hear over and over what unworthy worms we are.

But . . . what if we tried to recover the original intention of Lent: to enter more deeply into my participation in God’s activity on this earth through God’s New Humanity in Jesus Christ? What about learning more from the Bible? What about trying prayer in deeper ways? What about serving others as an offering of myself to God, as a self-conscious acting-out of God’s saving activity here on earth? Feeding the homeless, tutoring someone trying to learn English as a second language, visiting a Veterans' hospital, sponsoring a refugee family trying to make a new life in your city, mowing lawns of the homebound, sending cards to advocate for political prisoners, befriending a family of practicing Muslims (especially needed, in view of Rep. Peter King's witch-hunt-for-Muslim-extremists hearings beginning March 10) ? What about conversing with others about things that really matter, in a disciplined fashion? What about “giving up” something important, but maybe not necessary, in order to get out of the way something which has become an obstacle between me and God? What about fasting for a morning, or a day, letting every growl of the stomach becoming a reminder of my absolute dependence on God? What about praying for somebody else, or the poor, or war refugees, bringing them to the throne of God, every day? What about spending 15 minutes every day in silence, simply opening myself to God, paying focused attention to the presence of God? What about gathering my courage, and asking forgiveness from that person (you know, that one), and trying to mend fences?

What about recovering Lent as a season of growing closer to God?