Rev. Shannon Johnston

LOOKING AT LENT

Over the past couple of weeks, some of you who have come to All Saints’ from traditions that do not observe the Liturgical Year (“Church Calendar”) have asked me about Lent. It is true that this season takes a rather dramatic turn, both in the intensity of some of its themes (sin, mortality, penitence, discipline, etc.) and in the “personality” of our worship services. Moreover, weddings and baptisms are not allowed during Lent; indeed festivities of any sort in the Church (and personal life?) are generally thought to be inappropriate. The impact of this time is strong, and so it’s particularly important to be clear about it.

Lent is a season that lasts forty days—not counting Sundays. Sundays are not counted as part of the Lenten season because, theologically speaking, every Sunday is a feast day (commemorating the Resurrection), while the days of Lent are fast days. Fasting days, in this sense, are times when we observe special disciplines of self-denial and acts of devotion as means for repentance and conversion of life. It is still true that every Friday of the year (except during the Great Fifty Days of Easter and on Feast Days that happen to fall on a Friday in a given year) may be observed as a “fast day,” marking the crucifixion on Good Friday. That is really a matter of personal choice. However, Lent is the time when the Church calls everyone to the disciplines of fasting. It is not only a personal fast but also a corporate one.

These practices are what make many people think of Lent as something of a “negative” time. Understandable as this may be, it should not be taken too far! I’m often disturbed by what seems to be a thin line between keeping a holy Lent and some sort of spiritual masochism. Lent’s austerity does indeed call us to self-denial, repentance, and conversion, but it does so for the purposes of reconciliation in our relationships to God and to one another. As I said in my Ash Wednesday sermon, this means that Lent is actually a time of nurture (not negativity), nurture in the sense of giving us what we need in order to live and grow as Christians. The special practices of Lent are all about coming to know the nearer presence of Jesus Christ as the Lord of life. Far from being a time of self-mortification and spiritual punishment, the mindset of Lent is, in fact, a more intentional awareness of how God may be experienced in your life. The purpose of our own Lenten observances is to find ways to discover and remove any obstacles in personal life that prevent us from receiving God’s grace in full measure. Not a bad deal . . . junk out, grace in!

Please keep in mind as well that what you do in Lent should have the intent of bringing about real changes in your life that will enhance your spirituality and ongoing life of faith. So, Lent is just as much about what happens after the season as it is focused on the seasonal disciplines over forty days.

As Episcopalians, we encounter our Church’s theology primarily through our service books—the Book of Common Prayer and The Hymnal 1982. We are shaped by the theology we pray and sing. Look at what Hymn #145 says about Lent

(stanzas 1 & 2 of 5):

Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry;
for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain.
Lent calls to prayer, to trust and dedication;
God brings new beauty nigh;
Reply, reply, reply with love to love most high;

To bow the head in sack-cloth and in ashes,
Or rend the soul, such grief is not Lent’s goal;
But to be led to where God’s glory flashes,
His beauty to come near.
Make clear, make clear, make clear where truth and light appear. 

Faithfully,

Shannon ⁺