This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.”
Lent, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, cones from Old Dutch and Old German, meaning “long” or “lengthen.” It is a reference to the lengthening of days in the spring and in some Old English texts, the term is synonymous with spring. In Christianity, “Lent” refers to the forty days of penitence that beings on Ash Wednesday goes into to Holy Week, culminating in the joyous celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.
Like Christmas and Easter, the message of Ash Wednesday is the same, yet unlike those festivals, the readings in our lectionary never change. They are the same every year: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.
Sitting by the altar, listening to the readings again, I thought of my first Lent, 32 years earlier. I was kneeling next to my fiancé, Elizabeth, and I was bawling. Crying my eyes out. Why? I still don’t really know. I didn’t feel particularly guilty as we confessed our sins and asked for God’s absolution. I think it had to do with my grandfather. I remember thinking about him while we were kneeling. He had died 8 years earlier. I had never cried. Now, I was crying for him. I was a weeping for the relationship I never had and never would have with him.
Lent is about renewing relationships, with God, with one another.
If you have a conception of Lent at all, it is usually the idea of “giving something up” for Lent. The Book of Common Prayer calls us “to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” Of the seven things we are called to do in order to observe a holy Lent, only two, those in the middle, are about something up. In all other respects, we are called to take up.
We take up the disciplines of prayer and fasting, of reading and meditating on God’s word. Fasting is a function of prayer. There is a reason why the liturgy says it is “by prayer, fasting, and self-denial.” Fasting and self-denial are servants of prayer. They should only be for a time, such as forty days, or even only one day, but they are to focus our prayers, hearts, and minds upon God, his word, and his will for us. They are never goal or objectives on their own.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with self-examination and repentance. We must do this in order to draw near to God, to renew our relationship with God. Just as with the people in our lives whom we have hurt and who have hurt us; we cannot hope to be reconciled until we confess that we have been hurt and that we are hurt.
Lent is time set apart to reflect, repent, and renew.
Joel 2:12 Even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
