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On Lent
by barry brake
editor's note: this article represents the first in a series on the Christian calendar by Barry Brake - a special to Communiqué
We're not too good at seasons, are we? We live in such a fake world most of the time, we don't need them.
"Barry!" she says, "Why are you wearing shorts? It's 40 degrees outside!"
"We're not outside," I say. "We're inside, where it's 75. I spent 12 seconds outside, coming from my heated car to here. Why not wear shorts?"
It's true--even north of San Antonio (where Fall consists of 4 nonconsecutive days) the seasons don't really guide us.
When's the last time you really felt fresh and new and ready to go on January 1? Nothing changes on New Year's Day, as the man says. The time we really feel that frisky anticipation is September, right? New TV season, new football season, new school year! New clothes, new pencils, new commercials! That's what orders our lives these days.
In the midst of this, the Church beckons. The year is filled with days dedicated to people who served God and were channels of his grace in ways that still strike us; it is filled with seasons of its own that use the now-neglected rhythms of our planet to point to a greater reality.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God, the poets say. Every bush burns with his presence, though only a few will see and take their shoes off. The rest pluck blackberries.
There's a time in the darkest winter when the days get shorter and shorter until there's an inaudible tlink and they begin getting longer again; and we celebrate a little tlink of an event, the birth of a peasant, the slow start of a momentous thaw.
Likewise, when the physical thaw begins, and spring explodes out of its hibernation--yep, flowers can move boulders--we celebrate the great bust-out, the defeat of not just winter but winteriness, and death. Christ is risen, He is risen indeed.
Rising and setting, waxing and waning, aorta and septum. Labor and rest, sowing and reaping, light and dark, cold and hot. Birth, growth, decay, death. Life. We used to be governed by these things. Maybe we still are. Maybe the Church is right--we can't allow these things to pass us by without noticing them, and traveling in them to God's throne.
So. I invite you on a journey, through the church year. The Church Year, that is. With the permission of the good editors of Communiqué , I'll make some observations in coming issues; and maybe some of us will end up with our shoes off.
Like all good journeys, this one will start right where we are, and that is Lent.
LENT Proto Indo European *dlon-gho Proto Germanic <*langaz, *lang< long Old English < langian< to grow longer, yearn for PG <*langitinaz< lengthening of day OE <>lengten, lencten< spring
Lent n (first in print in 13c): the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by Christians as a period of penitence and fasting.
Lent is a holiday that liturgical Christians are aware of, but others--some Protestants and most evangelicals--know in only the vaguest way. Well, Advent has caught on in the last couple of decades, and maybe it's about time for Lent. Even for those who go through its motions, it often feels like something we need reminding of.
I'm sort of glad: It's the least marketable church holiday in our culture.
It has to be, just because of its nature--there's nothing to buy; it's all in what you don't do, what you don't consume. The perfect countercultural gesture.
But it's not just the countercultural gesture that is so important, and necessary, about Lent. And it's not the reason I urge you to celebrate Lent this year. It's that Lent is a true time of celebration...just of a different kind than we're used to.
We're right in the middle of that time of year that the church considers 'high.' It all starts with Advent, four Sundays before Christmas, then goes through Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, ending with Trinity Sunday, the Sunday after Pentecost. Then the rest of the year is 'low.'
This time of penitence and fasting doesn't seem too 'high' at first. It's hard to feel formal and celebratory when, as some do on the opening Wednesday, we wear a cross of ash on the forehead; throughout, some folks give up meat of one kind or another, and perhaps 'give up' something else, like chocolate or caffeine; one year I drank only water. This is carried from a time when penitents went to Rome and fasted 40 days; today we talk of 'remembering what Christ gave' whenever we feel a craving for those nonessentials, we talk of that remembrance pointing us to meditation of his great forsaking of heaven's glory. A little self-denial is more than just a nice thing in this glutted age. It's a celebration.
We understand that Advent is a time of richness, when we adorn our houses and bodies with deep rich jewel colors, green against red, shimmering gold against black, to celebrate our Christ's birth and a new chance; when we surround ourselves with family and old friends; when we give each other lavish gifts in remembrance of that great lavish gift of a savior; when we overwhelm our appetites with thick meats and spiced wines, and fill our nostrils with pine and firewood and cinnamon and chocolate: the heavy robes of plenitude. These are things we do instinctively and rightly.
And later on, come Easter, we'll bring out our bright pastel colors--or perhaps, symbolically, buy new ones--and clothe and surround ourselves with things that remind us of new life; we'll eat a glazed ham, that cheeky reminder of a new covenant; we'll fill our houses and worship-places with flowers and pictures of flowers, butterflies, rabbits and eggs--explosions of sunlight- and sky- and chlorophyll-colors. Eastre--goddess of the dawn.
But some folks have trouble seeing the holiness of these lavish celebrations, and it seems to me that often they are the very folks who have trouble seeing the mellow glory of the grey season, the lean season.
Lent is the time when we recognize the beauty of sackcloth and ashes; when our food is a plain contrast to the rich meats of feast-time; when the clothes we wear are simpler; when we spend perhaps more time alone to contemplate the coming tragedy and triumph; we echo Jesus' days of fasting, and all the fast-days of all people who needed him, and who turned to the great God of Israel for mercy.
Just as the Magus in us responds to his coming with feasts and gifts, and as the Apostle in us responds to his resurrection with hearty singing and clean exuberance, so the Prophet--and the Ninevite--in us respond to his great sacrifice with austerity and straightness of face.
Deep down inside our marrow is the suspicion that everything matters. Our very instincts tell us that we can praise God with everything we do--that all of life is a great ceremony. Time and again the Lord prompts us to make our dress, our table, our business, our house, our thoughts, in the shape of our devotion to him.
As we continue with that High part of the church year, and particularly during this pale adagio movement, I wish you a thoughtful faith.