| From the Pastor's Desk |
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| Wednesday, March 03, 2010 | |
 Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance. It is a season for reflection on the life of Jesus our Lord and taking stock of the quality of our own spiritual life. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a time to prepare for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. All churches that have a continuous history extending before AD 1500 observe Lent. The ancient church that wrote, collected, canonized, and propagated the New Testament also observed Lent, believing it to be a commandment from the apostles. Because Sunday is the weekly day we celebrate the Resurrection, we skip over Sundays when we count the 40 days that make up Lent. Lent always begins on Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter. In many countries, the last day before Lent (called Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, or Fasching) has become a last fling before the solemnity of Lent. For centuries, it was customary to fast by abstaining from meat during Lent, which is why some people call the festival "Carnival," which is Latin for "farewell to meat." Lent began in the apostolic era and was universal in the ancient church. For this reason, Lent is observed by the Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Anglican denominations, by Roman Catholics, and by Eastern Orthodox Churches. However, some churches do not observe this Christian season. The following may explain why. In the 16th century, many Calvinists and Anabaptists (groups against infant baptism) discarded all Christian holy days, on the theory that they were all inventions of Roman Catholic tradition. That was their best information at the time, but today we actually have better information about the early Church. In the late 19th century, ancient Christian documents came to light. The Didache from the first century, the Apostolic Constitutions from the third century, and the diaries of Egeria of the fourth century; all give evidence of the Christian calendar and holy days including Lent in the early church. In many cases, Rome was the last place to observe these apostolic holy days. For example, the idea of celebrating Holy Week as Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, was quite elaborate in Jerusalem before the early fourth century but did not spread to Rome until the 11th century. In the United States in the 19th century, the established denominations were slow to spread west of the Appalachians, which was the frontier at the time. The area was thinly populated and there were very few seminary-trained clergy. The lay people were often converted at camp meetings without any church background. Often they were influenced by the groups that had rejected Christian holy days, but frontier conditions were not conducive to structured liturgical worship anyway. They weren’t aware of the Christian holy days, and they didn’t have the equipment, the facilities, the education, the authorization, or the training to conduct liturgical worship. Therefore many of the religious groups that were formed in the United States in the 19th century do not have a custom of observing Lent. This environment had some influence on individual congregations in denominations that have historically observed the Christian holy days— because of this history it is still possible to occasionally find a few rural United Methodist churches that does not observe Lent. Lent is a gift from the living tradition of the early church. It is an invitation to draw near to God, as you do you will find God will draw near to you. Yours in Christ's service, |
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