Ash Wednesday
date posted: Feb 6, 2008
Today is Ash Wednesday. I ate 3 Reese cups yesterday before and after a basketball game, and so ended my Fat Tuesday before the Lenten season dawned this morning. The remnant still left in New Orleans tried their best to celebrate something yesterday. Mardi Gras is all over except for the cleanup. I wonder how many of yesterday’s revelers have now, with equal earnestness, shifted their focus on to the cross of Jesus?
Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is no longer tied to anything in the church year. Lent, on the other hand, does. The Lenten season begins today and lasts through Holy Week, the week leading up to the feast day of Easter, the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Lent’s purpose is to give a season (40 days) to shape one’s heart and life around the cross of Christ. It is a season for reflection, personal confession and renunciation of sin, of humility, gratitude, fasting, and penance. In summary, it is the season for dying – dying to self, dying to rebellion, dying to lust, dying to sin, dying to unbelief. After all, only dead things come to life, and only the dead in Christ will be raised to new life with Christ. Paul knew nothing but Lent in his ministry to the Corinthian church – “for I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (I Cor 2:2)
The celebrants of Mardi Gras do not seem to be cognizant of this at all. They seem to have it all backwards. “Eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow we die” would fit well as their creed. The Christ-follower is different. “Fast, weep, mourn, repent, and die, for tomorrow we are raised to life” is our creed. Unlike the rest of the world, true Christians can afford to save the best for last.
Our own, and SAU’s own Robert Moore-Jumonville has collaborated on a wonderful book of Lenten readings from scripture and from the writings of G.K. Chesterton. It’s title is Lent and Easter: Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton. The quote for today:
“The essential difference between Christian and Pagan asceticism lies in the fact that Paganism in renouncing pleasure gives up something which it does not think desirable; whereas Christianity in giving up pleasure gives up something it thinks very desirable indeed. Thus there is a frenzy in Christian asceticism; its follies and renunciations are like those of first love.” – from G.F. Watts
Pastor Mark Van Valin
February 6, 2008