Lent is a time of preparation. It is when we are to spend time (at least in theory) pondering the journey of Christ from those early celebratory moments of Christmas towards Good Friday. Lent itself begins with Ashes and ends with a Holy Week. With Ash Wednesday, the trajectory that begins liturgically points directly toward Good Friday. As it moves, the season of Lent is to be the time where we re-evaluate the level of commitment we truly have in our attempts at following Jesus.
For many, Lent is a difficult season due to the fact that it seems so gloomy, so earthen. It is not a triumphant season in the same way as Advent, Christmas, or Easter and Pentecost. J.C.J. Metford describes Lent this way: “A season of prayer, penance and self-discipline, beginning on the Wednesday of the seventh week before Easter, precedes the joyful celebration of Christ’s victory over death.” (Metford, J.C.J. The Christian Year (New York: Crossroad, 1991), p. 42)
We Christians can so quickly fall into the trap of triumphalism, the idea we are somehow so far superior to everyone else that we forget to remember Jesus’ call to follow him and the prophetic instruction to walk with God in humility. Lent is the time that, theoretically, pulls us back to earth and asks us to consider if we are truly walking with Jesus or merely taking the title of Christian with us and little else.
Lent can also be a time in which we ponder our estrangement from God which, from time to time, can be great. In that vein, the Christian church often has in its liturgy a confession of sin. Sometimes we struggle considering the meaning of sin or the nature of sin in our own lives. I would propose that Lent is the time to think about a confession that we might all need to make to different degrees: a confession of estrangement. To be estranged means a combination of the following: to turn away in feeling of affection; alienate the affections of; to remove or keep at a distance; to divert from the original use.
What keeps us in a state of estrangement from God and one another is sin. Sin is that which breaks relationships, and we often need to have our eyes opened to that brokenness. It isn’t necessarily a happy idea, but it is one that is needed for growth to take place; we cannot grow if we do not overcome the obstacles to that growth.
The Lenten journey is one that is a solemn and difficult one. Yet we approach it each year in humility and reverence and (hopefully) with the desire to reach the end of the season with a deeper appreciation for God’s grace and a faith that is more mature.
As the time of reflection comes to an end, we find ourselves at Holy Week, which is the culminating week for Christians. Holy Week begins with the story of the triumphal entry of Palm Sunday then moves through the week towards Maundy Thursday, the day we remember the Last Supper and the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The story continues to Good Friday, the day we set aside to remember the death of Jesus upon a cross. Holy Week culminates in Easter Sunday, THE Sunday for the Christian faith.
Sadly, for many Christians, the reverence and observation of a Holy Week has become something of a fading tradition. I have been fortunate enough to live in small towns in Tennessee where there were daily ecumenical services during Holy Week, though attendance wasn’t huge. Still, I feel it is important to try to observe it because if we don’t, then we move from the joy of the triumphal entry to the joy of Easter without the weight and theological importance of Holy Week. Without Holy Week, there is no Good Friday to which Easter is the ultimate reversal.
So, there needs to be some accounting for Holy Week in the Christian thinking. I invite you to strive to attend such services. Some churches have services each day, often at noon. But certainly join in the pageantry and narrative of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. These are the core stories for the Christian faith.
Pastor Charles