Lent - Not Biblical

This was the upshot of a conversation I had with a keen Pastor from another church regarding Ash Wednesday and the journey that begins then and ends on Easter Sunday. They pointed out that nowhere was Lent mentioned in the Bible and so it is, 'Merely something religious and therefore wrong!'

In fact they said that they were trying to encourage people to consider putting the observation aside as something outmoded and outdated; after all, they said, 'it's not something the whole Church does, is it?'

And, with Ash Wednesday just a few days away makes for a really interesting, and potentially confusing, situation for those both within and outside the Church. after all. Apparently the keeping of Lent is, for some, nothing more than being religious: It is a meaningless imposition of dirt followed by giving stuff up and submitting to external pressures from the clergy.

Yet what I see is a time of reflection and, rather than giving stuff up, is a time of taking stuff on. A time to be thinking about the journey to the cross and preparation of the spiritual room that is ourselves for the coming of Jesus the risen Christ. This is what the two purple periods of the church are all about - self examination and clearing out the remnants, silencing the echoes of things, that impede our Christian walk. It is something of value rather than something imposed and religious. It is the very essence of being authentically Christian rather than submitting to something hollow and worthless.

As for not being Biblical - having pointed out that the word 'Trinity' was not to be found in the Bible and so, perhaps, might also attract the same 'religious' label as assigned to Lent - I received short shrift. In fact I think that my conversant was starting to think I was yet another member of an outmoded and repressive denomination caught up in mere religious observance rather than a quick and lively faith.

And that's the sadness because in Lent I actually find something of great spiritual value - a call to a self-discipline that opens my mind and heart and takes me onto the road that leads to the Cross - and it is in this that Easter becomes something personal and eschews everything that could be considered religious.

Oddly, those who effectively ignore the journey to the cross - choosing merely to celebrate the victory of Easter without contemplating the journey that leads to it, the awfulness of betrayal and separation from God that was crucifixion - it is them who are in their triumphalism being religious. It is they who in celebrating the victory without the cost, are making something less than it is of Easter and along with those who tell me that you cannot 'out Grace' are merely celebrating a God who become a celestial do gooding piggy bank where forgiveness without the cost of commitment and discipline are on offer.

And that is why my Lenten journey is so important - not because I am engaging in a moment of self- flagellatory denial or some self-imposed meaningless observation of an unbiblical practice - but an taking the time to consider the cost of the cross and in so doing take up my own cross and seek to follow Jesus, the Christ, in right living and thinking. Something I try to do every day but made all the more challenging as I celebrate the reward made possible by the journey of the incarnate God for me.

Not mere religion - to think that is to be truly confused.