In last week’s blog, I confessed that most of my life I didn’t know what Ash Wednesday was all about. I thought it was a day to make amends for all the partying that happened the day before on Fat Tuesday. This week I’ll come clean about not knowing much about Lent either. If we weren’t talking about the stuff that accumulates in your belly button, all I knew was that it was a time you had to give up something really good and could only eat fish on Friday’s. I had no clue Lent was an important part of the liturgical church calendar.
I did not grow up in a church that followed a liturgical calendar. We celebrated Easter and Christmas, but terms like Advent and Lent were lost on me. Recently, however, I’ve come to appreciate not only what these days and terms mean, but the value of participating in them.
The church calendar is a yearly cycle that corresponds to the life of Jesus from His birth to His resurrection, and then to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It involves major holy days (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost) and seasons (Advent, Lent, Holy Week), and includes a few other significant days (Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Trinity Sunday) within these seasons.
The liturgical year begins with Advent, which starts four weeks prior to Christmas. Advent is a season of expectation. As the saints of old awaited the coming of a Redeemer, we, like them, await Jesus’s return. Following Advent is the season of Christmas. According to tradition, Christmas is a 12 day celebration that begins December 25th and ends January 5th (hence the song, “Twelve Days of Christmas”). Punctuating the Christmas season is Epiphany. On this day, the church traditionally remembers the coming of the Wise Men to worship Jesus. Ash Wednesday is a day on the church calendar that marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent, which begins 46 days (40 weekdays plus 6 Sundays) before Easter is a season of fasting and preparation. It is intended to mimic the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tested. The last seven days of Lent are called Holy Week, which recall the last days of Jesus on Earth before His crucifixion. During these six days we remember Jesus’s death for us and its significance on Good Friday. Holy Week culminates with Easter when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Fifty days after Easter is Pentecost, a day in which the church recounts the outpouring of the Holy Spirit recorded in Acts 2.
So, we are currently in the season of Lent. It’s a time we focus on our relationship with God often choosing to deny ourselves of something that interferes with that relationship and/or to get beyond ourselves and give to others. However you are observing Lent I pray it is a meaningful season for you. I also hope you are following the 40 Days in the Bible reading plan with us and are making plans to join us as we Read Through the Bible in 120 hours.
Ryan Smallwood
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