Lent Primer 2016.pages
(2) Lenten Fast and Total Fast In the Lenten Fast, you abstain from some food or drink item for the entirety of Lent. Maybe you will choose to give up meat, or one of your meals during the day, or snacking between meals, or caffeine, or alcohol. What you give up should be something that is good and pleasurable and important to your daily life. Why? In order to create a low-grade hunger throughout the day which will cultivate in you a hunger for Christ himself. In addition, fasting and prayer are uniquely powerful spiritual weapons in our battle with sin and Satan. Some may fast for the purpose of gaining victory over jealousy, or envy, or lust, or anger, or lack of integrity, etc. In addition to the Lenten Fast, practice a total fast at the beginning Lent and at the end of Lent. The first total fast is on Ash Wednesday. The second total fast is for the approximately 60 hours from the evening of Maundy Thursday to the Easter feast. In a total fast you deny yourself all food, allowing the hunger pains to focus your longing for Christ—to be with him, to be touched by him in your inner person, to be healed of your pain, and to live fully for him. (3) Scripture and Prayer For the entirety of Lent, set aside a specific and consistent time each day for Scripture reading and prayer. We will provide a Lenten Devotional which will include a list of Scripture passages for each day. These passages have been selected so that we, as a Church, may read and pray our way, at the same pace, through the entire Gospel of Luke over the Lenten season. In addition, the readings coordinate with Lent for Everyone: Luke, Year C: A Daily Devotional by N. T. Wright. Should you choose to purchase a copy of this resource (through Amazon, or some other book retailer), you will find it to be an excellent aid for your devotions. (4) Home Atmosphere We all are weak. We need the external reminders—symbols, signs—of the season of Lent. Our culture will not give them to us because Lent is not conducive to a consumeristic culture. Find ways to create an atmosphere of Lent in your home. Remember (1) Sunday is never a fast day, because Sunday is the day of the resurrection. It is a day that we rejoice in the work Christ has done for us and will complete for us when he comes again. So on each Sunday of Lent we receive back from the Lord, with gratitude, whatever we are giving up for our Lenten Fast. (2) The purpose of fasting is not to accumulate favor in God's eyes. The purpose of fasting is to "establish, maintain, repair, and transform our relationship with God" (Robert Webber). The spiritual disciplines (fasting, prayer, meditation, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration) exist "to move us beyond surface living into the depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm" (Richard Foster). The disciplines are means through which the grace of God flows into our lives; they purify our doors of perception so that we are better able to see God.
Lent: A Primer WHAT IS LENT? Lent is a forty-day pilgrimage into a bright sadness that begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday in preparation for the ultimate destination of Easter Sunday. On the one hand, it is a sadness in that we mourn over our sin, brokenness, and exile. Through disciplines of abstention and engagement, our hearts are softened to the realities of the Spirit as we cultivate a thirst and hunger for communion with God. On the other hand, Hebrews 12:2 tells us that even the dark events of Holy Week were motivated by a blazing joy: “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” The journey of Lent, in other words, is a brightness, because it does not lead to a deadend, but to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In addition, the Lenten pilgrimage is not a time for doing things we never do otherwise. Like Sunday, Lent is for intensifying things we do all the time. It is a journey of repentance, a dying to sin and to the power it holds on our lives. Lent leads us to the brilliance of God’s presence, the mercy of his forgiveness, and the joy of his new life. This Lent, may we journey to Easter with hearts purified and renewed!
WHERE DID LENT COME FROM? The church calendar is rooted in biblical principles. God gave Israel a calendar to commemorate his work. (See, for example, Exodus 12:1–2 and Deuteronomy 15– 16.) But then, in the book of Esther, we see that Israel added the feast of Purim to the calendar God had already prescribed. Israel did this in order to memorialize God’s salvation of the Jews from the evil Haman. God approved of this addition as evidenced by the fact that Esther is included in the Bible. The church’s calendar, like the feast of Purim for the Jews of the Old Testament, does not derive from divine ordinance, but from the church’s Spirit-led reflection on God’s redemptive work in history. Each season of the Christian year is focused on a different moment in the drama of redemption as it centers around Christ. Advent, the promise of Christ’s arrival and return; Christmas, the joy of Christ’s presence; Epiphany, the reach of Christ’s revelation; Lent, the darkness of Christ’s suffering; Easter, the wonder of Christ’s victory; and Pentecost, the summons to Christ’s mission. As you can see, the church’s calendar, an extended commemoration of the gospel story, inserts “the fact of Christ into the rhythm of seasons, weeks, days and hours” (Yves Conger).
WHY FORTY DAYS? The Lenten period of time is patterned after several events in Scripture associated with the number 40. For example, Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness,
Nineveh’s 40 days of repentance in sackcloth and ashes in the book of Jonah, and Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and fighting Satan in the wilderness. Each of these “forties,” focused as they are on suffering, testing, repentance, and Spiritual warfare, inform our Lenten contemplation on the glory of the Cross-Shattered Christ who saves the world.
THE GREAT TRIDUUM is the time from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. The earliest Christians rightly recognized Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as one single event. Our personal and public acts of worship from Thursday night to Sunday morning will follow this ancient tradition, celebrating the single event of Jesus’ passover from life to death to life again.
HOW DOES LENT WORK?
MAUNDY THURSDAY is the Thursday prior to Easter Sunday. We gather for worship to commemorate Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, to hear his new command to love one another as he loves, to wash one another’s feet as he taught, and to remember his institution of the Lord’s Supper. The service concludes with the stripping of the altar as we are hurled into the darkness of Jesus’ trial, torture, and crucifixion. Those who are able, from this moment until the Easter feast, fast from all food, and as much as possible, refrain from business, shopping, and pleasure, practice meditation, prayer, Scripture reading, and silence.
To observe Lent rightly we must be persuaded of two facts: those who are in Christ already stand in God’s favor, and growth as a Christian does not occur automatically. Our sinful habits and false selves do not disappear either at conversion or when we have powerful spiritual experiences. Our sinful nature must be dismantled. We must work at discipleship until righteousness becomes second nature. Grace is the starting point. The hard work of Lent does not begin with our effort; it starts with the work of Jesus in us. As you pray for and plan for Lent, remember that whatever disciplines or repentances you undertake are not the center of your Lenten journey. Keep the sufferings and death of Jesus as your focus. Our self-denials and sufferings are corollaries of our union with Christ who has already won our salvation.
SPECIAL DAYS AND COLORS ASSOCIATED WITH LENT Lent is a time in which we intensify our focus on the sufferings and cross of Jesus, but Jesus’ unique cross cannot be separated from the particular cross we are each called to bear. Jesus, after all, didn’t go to the cross so that we can escape the cross; he went to the cross to enable us to bear it after him in union with him. Lent, therefore, naturally becomes a season of contrition and repentance. Each season of the Christian year has a rhythm, a tonality which is often captured with color. The liturgical color of Lent is purple—a deep color of penitence, and a lush color of royalty. Lent is for training kings! ASH WEDNESDAY is the first day of Lent. The worship service this night will include extensive confessions of sin and reminders of our call to journey with Jesus in the way of the cross. Also, we will experience the imposition of ashes to the forehead. This way of renewing our identification with Christ’s suffering and death, developed by the early church, draws upon several biblical examples of people using ashes as a visible and tangible sign of contrition over sin (e.g., 2 Samuel 13:19; Esther 4:1, 3; Job 2:8; 30:19; 42:6; Jonah 3:6; etc.). The ashes, made from the palm fronds used at the previous year’s Palm Sunday service, a stark reminder of our own fickle hearts, bring us face to face with the reality of sin and death. PALM SUNDAY is the Sunday before Easter Sunday. This day commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem prior to the Passover and his death. (See Matthew 21.) We start our worship service with a processional from the parking lot while we are waving palm branches, singing, shouting hosanna, and playing various instruments.
GOOD FRIDAY, the key day in the entire Lenten journey, is the Friday prior to Easter Sunday. We call it “Good” because we know how the story ends. Our focus is not on the senseless human suffering of Jesus, but on the suffering of God in human flesh to redeem us from the curse of sin. The worship service uses readings and hymns centered on the passion story. It concludes in darkness and silence in order to commemorate the horror and magnitude of sin and its consequences. HOLY SATURDAY is the final day in Lent. There are no worship services. We are overwhelmed with the despair that the disciples must have felt as the Lord Christ lay in the tomb. We prepare for Easter by cleaning house and preparing food for the Easter feast.
WHAT DO I DO FOR LENT? My friend Rich Lusk once wrote, “Lent is only worth observing if we do so in light of the coming Easter joy; but without proper observance of Lent, Easter celebrations are cheapened and depleted of their power. In our narcissistic, self-centered culture, Lent takes on special importance. You will know you have kept Lent rightly if you come to the end of its 40 day journey with a deeper faith in Christ crucified and a greater joy in the power of the risen Christ.” Here are the four disciplines Incarnation uses to go on the Lenten journey together. (1) Worship Adjust your schedule to participate in these additional worship services. • Ash Wednesday at Church of the Apostles (Eastern Shore) 7:30 a.m.; 12 pm; 6 pm • Maundy Thursday worship service on March 24 at 6:00pm. • Good Friday worship service on March 25 at 6:00pm. • Easter Sunday worship service on March 27 at 10:30am. These services offer a structure to help us recover the reality of the cross and the resurrection.
Lent: A Primer WHAT IS LENT? Lent is a forty-day pilgrimage into a bright sadness that begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday in preparation for the ultimate destination of Easter Sunday. On the one hand, it is a sadness in that we mourn over our sin, brokenness, and exile. Through disciplines of abstention and engagement, our hearts are softened to the realities of the Spirit as we cultivate a thirst and hunger for communion with God. On the other hand, Hebrews 12:2 tells us that even the dark events of Holy Week were motivated by a blazing joy: “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” The journey of Lent, in other words, is a brightness, because it does not lead to a deadend, but to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In addition, the Lenten pilgrimage is not a time for doing things we never do otherwise. Like Sunday, Lent is for intensifying things we do all the time. It is a journey of repentance, a dying to sin and to the power it holds on our lives. Lent leads us to the brilliance of God’s presence, the mercy of his forgiveness, and the joy of his new life. This Lent, may we journey to Easter with hearts purified and renewed!
WHERE DID LENT COME FROM? The church calendar is rooted in biblical principles. God gave Israel a calendar to commemorate his work. (See, for example, Exodus 12:1–2 and Deuteronomy 15– 16.) But then, in the book of Esther, we see that Israel added the feast of Purim to the calendar God had already prescribed. Israel did this in order to memorialize God’s salvation of the Jews from the evil Haman. God approved of this addition as evidenced by the fact that Esther is included in the Bible. The church’s calendar, like the feast of Purim for the Jews of the Old Testament, does not derive from divine ordinance, but from the church’s Spirit-led reflection on God’s redemptive work in history. Each season of the Christian year is focused on a different moment in the drama of redemption as it centers around Christ. Advent, the promise of Christ’s arrival and return; Christmas, the joy of Christ’s presence; Epiphany, the reach of Christ’s revelation; Lent, the darkness of Christ’s suffering; Easter, the wonder of Christ’s victory; and Pentecost, the summons to Christ’s mission. As you can see, the church’s calendar, an extended commemoration of the gospel story, inserts “the fact of Christ into the rhythm of seasons, weeks, days and hours” (Yves Conger).
WHY FORTY DAYS? The Lenten period of time is patterned after several events in Scripture associated with the number 40. For example, Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness,
Nineveh’s 40 days of repentance in sackcloth and ashes in the book of Jonah, and Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and fighting Satan in the wilderness. Each of these “forties,” focused as they are on suffering, testing, repentance, and Spiritual warfare, inform our Lenten contemplation on the glory of the Cross-Shattered Christ who saves the world.
THE GREAT TRIDUUM is the time from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. The earliest Christians rightly recognized Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as one single event. Our personal and public acts of worship from Thursday night to Sunday morning will follow this ancient tradition, celebrating the single event of Jesus’ passover from life to death to life again.
HOW DOES LENT WORK?
MAUNDY THURSDAY is the Thursday prior to Easter Sunday. We gather for worship to commemorate Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, to hear his new command to love one another as he loves, to wash one another’s feet as he taught, and to remember his institution of the Lord’s Supper. The service concludes with the stripping of the altar as we are hurled into the darkness of Jesus’ trial, torture, and crucifixion. Those who are able, from this moment until the Easter feast, fast from all food, and as much as possible, refrain from business, shopping, and pleasure, practice meditation, prayer, Scripture reading, and silence.
To observe Lent rightly we must be persuaded of two facts: those who are in Christ already stand in God’s favor, and growth as a Christian does not occur automatically. Our sinful habits and false selves do not disappear either at conversion or when we have powerful spiritual experiences. Our sinful nature must be dismantled. We must work at discipleship until righteousness becomes second nature. Grace is the starting point. The hard work of Lent does not begin with our effort; it starts with the work of Jesus in us. As you pray for and plan for Lent, remember that whatever disciplines or repentances you undertake are not the center of your Lenten journey. Keep the sufferings and death of Jesus as your focus. Our self-denials and sufferings are corollaries of our union with Christ who has already won our salvation.
SPECIAL DAYS AND COLORS ASSOCIATED WITH LENT Lent is a time in which we intensify our focus on the sufferings and cross of Jesus, but Jesus’ unique cross cannot be separated from the particular cross we are each called to bear. Jesus, after all, didn’t go to the cross so that we can escape the cross; he went to the cross to enable us to bear it after him in union with him. Lent, therefore, naturally becomes a season of contrition and repentance. Each season of the Christian year has a rhythm, a tonality which is often captured with color. The liturgical color of Lent is purple—a deep color of penitence, and a lush color of royalty. Lent is for training kings! ASH WEDNESDAY is the first day of Lent. The worship service this night will include extensive confessions of sin and reminders of our call to journey with Jesus in the way of the cross. Also, we will experience the imposition of ashes to the forehead. This way of renewing our identification with Christ’s suffering and death, developed by the early church, draws upon several biblical examples of people using ashes as a visible and tangible sign of contrition over sin (e.g., 2 Samuel 13:19; Esther 4:1, 3; Job 2:8; 30:19; 42:6; Jonah 3:6; etc.). The ashes, made from the palm fronds used at the previous year’s Palm Sunday service, a stark reminder of our own fickle hearts, bring us face to face with the reality of sin and death. PALM SUNDAY is the Sunday before Easter Sunday. This day commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem prior to the Passover and his death. (See Matthew 21.) We start our worship service with a processional from the parking lot while we are waving palm branches, singing, shouting hosanna, and playing various instruments.
GOOD FRIDAY, the key day in the entire Lenten journey, is the Friday prior to Easter Sunday. We call it “Good” because we know how the story ends. Our focus is not on the senseless human suffering of Jesus, but on the suffering of God in human flesh to redeem us from the curse of sin. The worship service uses readings and hymns centered on the passion story. It concludes in darkness and silence in order to commemorate the horror and magnitude of sin and its consequences. HOLY SATURDAY is the final day in Lent. There are no worship services. We are overwhelmed with the despair that the disciples must have felt as the Lord Christ lay in the tomb. We prepare for Easter by cleaning house and preparing food for the Easter feast.
WHAT DO I DO FOR LENT? My friend Rich Lusk once wrote, “Lent is only worth observing if we do so in light of the coming Easter joy; but without proper observance of Lent, Easter celebrations are cheapened and depleted of their power. In our narcissistic, self-centered culture, Lent takes on special importance. You will know you have kept Lent rightly if you come to the end of its 40 day journey with a deeper faith in Christ crucified and a greater joy in the power of the risen Christ.” Here are the four disciplines Incarnation uses to go on the Lenten journey together. (1) Worship Adjust your schedule to participate in these additional worship services. • Ash Wednesday at Church of the Apostles (Eastern Shore) 7:30 a.m.; 12 pm; 6 pm • Maundy Thursday worship service on March 24 at 6:00pm. • Good Friday worship service on March 25 at 6:00pm. • Easter Sunday worship service on March 27 at 10:30am. These services offer a structure to help us recover the reality of the cross and the resurrection.
