Many would ask what Lent is. People put ash on their foreheads; others go without meat or some other pleasure for a few days or weeks; still others fast seriously for a season--and we wonder what to make of it all.The word "Lent" refers to spring, signalling emergence from the cold barrenness of winter to life-renewal on planet earth. The symbolic usefulness of this is plain. Lent can mark the coming of spring with a reflection upon how our souls may need renewal, as they often grow cold and barren for a season.
From back in the 100s AD some Christians have prepared for the Good Friday/Easter event with fasting and prayer. Marked by repentance, this was a season for personal reflection about one's own relationship with Christ, with an accompanying sorrow and confession over sin.
Someone has written: "The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial, for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."
So Lent, with most of its individual components as practiced by many Christians throughout the centuries, is really a merging of many Christian disciplines into one forty day long event.
It's hard to argue with any of this. We evangelicals embrace penitence (not the same as penance), confession, fasting, prayer, self-evaluation, almsgiving, self-denial, and even the observance of holy days. Who can deny the value of these practices? In fact, each (with the exception of holy days) is biblically required of believers in some form or another, at one time and another.
What is optional is whether one attaches them to a Lenten pre-Good Friday/Easter experience. If one chooses to do so, I'd only urge that the following safeguards be observed.
--Lent must never be seen as a form of penance or personal atonement for sin.
--Lent must never be required of a believer by any Church or spiritual authority
--Lent must never be elevated above human tradition status. We must keep in mind our Lord's teaching in Matthew 15:1-9 that traditions are very dangerous things.
If so guarded, this discipline can prove and has proven immensely helpful to many. After all, don't we all have sin-winters in the soul from which we need to emerge into springtime life and renewal?
We do not consistently observe the Lenten Season as a family. We used to when we lived in Chicago. Now, it is more a lack of vision and discipline, than fear of Rome, which keeps us from using Lent as a season of preparation.
ReplyDeleteWe do, however, observe a brief ceremony on Ash Wednesday. The children form a (long) line in front of me-- I remind each of them that they have come from dust, and "to the dust you shall return." Then, I put ash on their foreheads-- a symbol of our mortality. I think it makes an impression, a lasting one, I hope.
It is a long-standing devotional practice of the Church to remember our mortality.
As you say Tim, all that is associated with Roman is not bad. But it is difficult NOT to make the associations, and many good and useful traditions are guilty by association.
It is a case of having "thrown the baby out with the bath." But I do understand the dilemma facing evangelicals who feel the need to clearly set themselves apart from Rome.
JR-- what are your thoughts... in four sentences or less!
In four sentences or less, I would say that I am convinced that we must be more discerning as evangelicals (as my first few posts will show) not to throw out the baby....
ReplyDeleteMy primary concerns with Rome have to do with fundamental issues of authority (whether the Bible is the one final authority for faith and life, or a Church or council or Pope is) and grace (the matter of whether sinners are saved by grace alone through faith alone by the finished work and imputed righteousness of Christ alone, or by some mixture of grace and human merit)--which primary concerns render all other questions to be of lesser importance and in some cases of no great consequence at all, something which I wish some evangelicals would consider (all one sentence).
I believe symbols can speak to us, and are harmless so long as we (or Church officials) do not give them anything like binding status.
I believe that since the means of grace explicitly laid out in Scripture are all we need, such symbols are never needed, but may be helpful--a statement which constitutes my fourth and final sentence.
I am flattered Pete that you would think my comments worthy of review. Pastor Tim has done an excellant job with these blogs and it is easy for me to add a thought or a concern without having done the hard work that you, Bruce and Tim do regularly on these blogs.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I do find the request somewhat irresistable.
Here goes.....
All things are lawful to you. Whatever draws you closer to Christ without sin or offence is a good thing. Paul says that some regard holy days and feasts and some don't. The motive, it seems to me, is the real issue. Christians wanting to exchange the worship and feast of Rah, created Christmas. They felt jipped as it were, when it came to a winter solstice celebration, so they invented a Christian holiday. I feel no obligation to go to church on Christmas eve or day. These are adiaphra or things indifferent. We all tend to create our own traditions. Nothing wrong in themselves necessarily, if they don't require sin or offend others.
I don't know that the Church of Rome was ever the true church. I feel no obligation to recognise them as "brethren" as they long as they believe a lie. Many Puritan writers viewed Rome as "Babalon The Great Whore". The seducer of the brethren. We are exhorted to avoid "every appearance of evil".
I, for this reason, have little to do with the Roman Church and her practices. I do acknowledge the the possibility that God can save a Roman Catholic in spite of the teachings of the church. I choose not to focus on the exceptions to the rule, but the rule. On the other hand, our Lord made use of the feast of tabernacles, and the great Jerusalem tower of fire which lit up the city on the last great day of that feast. He stood n font of it and said,"Iam the light of the world". If we do anything with lent, it should be to those of us who know Him, used as a season of true repentance, true remembrance, true worship. And not as an outward display before the world, of that which is not true in our hearts. But I think Pastor has already mentioned this.
My Thoughts......
"After all, don't we all have sin-winters in the soul from which we need to emerge into springtime life and renewal?"
ReplyDeleteIs this a rhetorical question or would you like an answer.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks again for the lessons in Lent. Thanks for the concise primary (of first importance) concerns that your expressed in your comment.
"After all, don't we all have sin-winters in the soul from which we need to emerge into springtime life and renewal?"
ReplyDeletePowerful statement that gives me pause to consider my own souls winter and the emerging of Spring...
Hmmmm...
sdpaul