I had never been fully cognizant of what was happening in the church according to the liturgical calendar. My mom tells me our little, evangelical church was good about at least remarking on the special holy days or seasons coming up. Maybe I simply wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe nothing ever stuck, because I never knew what these days actually were; as far as I can remember, these were not developed within my church in a way that had any staying power. (Is the pastor off the hook if I was just vaguely ‘informed’?)
Lent was one such season that was announced, followed by an Ash Wednesday service, but not touched on again. I always considered Lent irrelevant anyhow.
Everyone knew Lent was a ritual all the nominal Catholics took part in, using it as a means to jumpstart a diet they had been intending to get on anyway; Lent was just the added impetus. Lent was a time when people begrudgingly gave up something, and being driven not by joy but by pride and legalism, dragged themselves through those agonizing forty days.
But then, in my own life Easter usually snuck up on me, and I would lament the fact that I had been so detached and hadn’t taken much time to think on this season and its implications. Coming home from St. Paul’s Church on Transfiguration Sunday, a friend remarked, “that was the last time we’ll sing an ‘Alleluia’ until Easter.” How striking that was to realize! Along those lines, last year I sent another friend into a frenzy over the fact that I had been listening to the Easter section of Handel’s “Messiah” before Easter. How dare I? Last year, I brushed off her outburst with an exasperated sigh, but this year? I’ve never so strongly seen the beauty in this time of waiting and fasting and preparing for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
Many are aware of the magnitude and drama of this time, but how often do we give it any more thought than we would the weather? Søren Kierkegaard states that Christ’s whole life on earth was intended solely to have followers and to make mere admirers impossible. “Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not instructing it. At the same time — as is implied in his saving work — he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower.”
Indeed, Lent (literally “springtime”) is meant to cut to the heart of our complacency; it is a time when, “out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges.” He was tested, and if we are serious about who He is, we will follow suit.
