The season of Easter is fast approaching and with it the palpable excitement of the Christian community. Oh wait—I forgot. We don’t anticipate Easter months ahead of time like we do Christmas. No one is counting the days until it is permissible to sing “Christ Arose!”—and certainly not like how we furtively hum Nat King Cole in October. For those who have grown up in a Christian home, the Church calendar’s story of Easter is old news. It seems everything has already been said: Christ was crucified, died, and then rose again on the third day. Each year rolls out nothing new but the same overabundance of chocolate and a headache the next day. Most of us probably have a vague sense that this apathy is dangerous, knowing that Easter is the basis for the hope of Christians. But we don’t know quite what to do. As a tonic to this passivity, I suggest the season of Lent.
Lent is about recognizing what our sin has done to us
Lent, a long-standing tradition of the Church, is mentioned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and even earlier, as pointed out by Dr. Paul Gutacker, Executive Director of Brazos Fellows. “One way to think about where it came from,” he said, “and really the meaning it has carried down through the centuries is that it is a time for us to seek to turn back to the Lord.” He went on to expand on the purpose of the season: “Lent is about recognizing what our sin has done to us…as we get close to Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion and Resurrection, his triumph over death and satan, his great work in undoing our sin, it’s an appropriate time to pay more attention to that, to really look hard at the way in which we are enslaved to sin, subject to death.” As Dr. Gutacker put it, Lent is a time to realize the extent of sin’s damage in our lives, and the control it has that leads to both spiritual and physical death. Lent is a forty-day period of fasting that prepares us for the magnificent fifty-day feast of Easter. We examine ourselves and repent so that we can properly celebrate the death and resurrection of the Savior who has delivered us from sin.
The failure to recognize Lent doesn’t diminish Easter as much as it transforms Easter. Easter becomes a different kind of holiday when it just happens and you haven’t been preparing for it
Dr. Scott Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts, comes from the Baptist tradition. He also stressed the importance of Lent, lamenting the loss which he believes his tradition experiences from neglecting the season. In remarking on how the practice of Lent affects Easter, he said, “The failure to recognize Lent doesn’t diminish Easter as much as it transforms Easter. Easter becomes a different kind of holiday when it just happens and you haven’t been preparing for it, you haven’t been thinking about it, you haven’t been looking forward to it. I think that’s where the danger of ignoring Lent is… If I take forty days to get ready for it, I’m going to think about it differently.”
But what does this look like? A vague thought of, “Oh, I suppose I’ll think about my sin every so often for the next forty days,” will not take us very far. Along with our firm resolutions to be released from the tyranny of our phones and stop staying up late enough to be singing “Good Morning, Good Morning” with Gene Kelly, this one too will be passionate and short-lived. We make excuses for this, saying “there’s too much going on to add another task.” But the beauty of Lent is that it does just the opposite.
Dr. Gutacker explained that the Anglican practice of Lent is encapsulated in three things: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving (Charity).
Yes, I know that that looks like adding three things. But hear me out. The second element, fasting, is the key. Fasting is not limited to giving up food (which some may not be able to do for health reasons) but includes giving up something in order to spend that time in prayer and almsgiving. This could mean food, but it could also mean social media.
As Dr. Moore said, “The point of giving up something of course is to focus your mind on the preparation for the great feast that is Easter. We only give up something, not because it’s intrinsically valuable to give something up, but as a way of focusing our attention. When I’m inclined to want to look at Instagram or eat the piece of chocolate or whatever it might be, that becomes a very easy way for me to refocus my mind.” In other words, the fasting of Lent is not mere privation. It is giving up one thing for the sake of something better.
We don’t only fast for our own well-being, though. Dr. Gutacker notes the connection between fasting and almsgiving when he said, “Part of the point of fasting is going without what you need for your own good, for your own healing, for your own growth, but also for the sake of others.”
For most of us, however, our minds are not always very pleasant places. “Look, I already know how broken I am,” many of us might say, “My mistakes are always before my eyes, I know I’m not enough and never can be. And you want me to devote forty days to pondering the depths of my sin and depravity?” Or perhaps, “It’s really better not to go there—I haven’t really thought about it deeply and once I start, it will only end in despair.” As someone who has struggled with these questions, I’d like to offer a possible solution: community.
Dr. Gutacker said, “You don’t do it alone. There is a time and place for prayerful self-examination, but I think you always want to avail yourself of what God gives us to help us do that well.” In other words, the practice of Lent is not a solitary endeavor. Dr. Gutacker explained that we desperately need our priests, spiritual mentors, and fellow believers to help us through Lent:
We have to get out of our own heads and that’s why God gives us ministers
“We probably let ourselves off the hook about things that are much more insidious. And so I think we have to get out of our own heads and that’s why God gives us ministers. So I would encourage people during Lent that it is a very good time to prepare for and make a confession to a priest. And this is not about earning forgiveness that you can’t get otherwise, it’s about healing.”
If Lent is new to you, there are practices you can begin to incorporate into your life. Fasting can include not only food but social media or any habit which might be an undue source of distraction. For those looking for a devotional, Christopher Richmann’s Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life is a great place to start. For any who love art, I have included some of my personal favorite works to contemplate during Lent: Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, Caravaggio’s The Entombment of Christ, Giotto’s Lamentation, and the Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece.
