Conversion to Lent

Today I'm sending out an email to all of Lake Forest, inviting them to join me on a Journey of Lent this Easter season.  Here is Robert Webber's description of the similar conversion I have undergone regarding Lent and its appropriateness for Christians:

"Unfortunately some Christians live as though the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ never happened.  Our lives become absorbed in the day-to-day experiences of life.  We focus on name-brand clothing, the color of our houses, the size of our bank account...We too easily forget our Maker and Redeemer, replacing God with things and ambition.  Lent is the season that does something about this situation.  It calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life.  It calls on us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons.  And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord--the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life.  This is what Ash Wednesday is all about--the fundamental change of life required of those who would die with Jesus and be raised to a new life in him."

"For most people coming  from my background, an Ash Wednesday service and Lent are quite foreign and somewhat threatening.  The Christmas and Advent cycle are much less threatening because Christmas themes are so prevalent in our culture...But Lent is another matter.  Lent appears to be dark and foreboding.  It reminds Protestants of their worst fears of Roman Catholic practices--ritualism, works, fasting, vigils, and the like.  Haven't we been saved from all that (we ask)?  Didn't the Reformers free us from having to do works and pilgrimmages and such things?

No one would question that some Catholics have abused the real meaning of Ash Wednesday and Lent.  We all remember those Catholic teenagers in high school; some of them may have been very poor representatives of the Catholic faith, but on Ash Wednesday they appeared with a dark smudge picturing the sign of the cross on their foreheads."

"Perhaps we laughed inside and thought to ourselves, just another mark of an external, ritualistic religion.  Perhaps yes, perhaps no.  Only God can judge the heart.  Aside from that dare we ask:  Does something lie behind that symbol that has the potential to make our journey into Easter more meaningful?  After all, what do we do for Easter?  Most Protestants don't make any spiritual preparation for the annual celebration of the death and resurrection.  For example, when I was growing up the only preparation for Easter made in my home--a deeply committed Christian home at that--was the planning and purchasing of new clothing.  Easter was a weekend event.  Preparing for Easter for seven weeks was unthinnkable, ludicrous, even pagan. 

"But now I am constrained to ask: Who is the pagan?  Yes, it is wrong to go thorugh the mostions of Ash Wednesday and Lent in a mechanical, uninvolved way.  But it is also wrong to ignore any kind of preparation for the Easter event.  Happily there is an alternative for both Catholics and Protestants:  Recover the true spiritual intent of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Spiritual pilgrimmage.  We can begin the journey of Lent by the life-changing content of the Ash Wednesday service."        -Robert Webber, "Ancient Future Time," pages 99-100.

Comments

[Mark Denning]

Here is a page that gives really helpful back ground and explanation as well as links to other pages that people might find helpful.

http://reflections.cyberpastor.net/bible/what-is-lent/

[Jaye]

Mike,
Maybe it is my age, or maybe my multi-denominational family background, or maybe even it is my growth and development oas a child of God - but I am THRILLED that we are bringing out some of the ancient practices that mark the season of Lent.
Several years ago I taught a children's lesson through "Godly Play" that explained the liturgical calendar. One of the wondering questions for the children was if there are 4 weeks of preparation for Christmas and 1 Sunday dedicated to Jesus birth, but there are 6 weeks of preparation for Easter and 7 Sundays of celebration of Easter - which one do you think God is telling us is more important? This lesson is so counter-cultural to our society and sometimes I wonder if it is that a baby's birth is just so much fun - and somehow our Christian focus on Easter is more on the pain, suffering and death on the cross than it is about the empty tomb, the resurrected body and the promise of an eternal relationship.
I look forward to the Ash Wednesday services that will provide an official "starting point" of this preparation time, the Stations of the Cross that can advance my prayer and reflection and a Good Friday service that can allow my heart to feel not only the pain and suffering, but the extreme sense of loss and dejection the disciples experienced - all these only serve to increase the joy we can experience on Easter since it gives us a closer understanding of what we are really celebrating.
I would love our church to one day share a Christian Seder so that we would all truly understand what Jeus meant when he picked up the bread and the wine at the last supper...