Lent and Other Such Practices…
I was recently in the company of an evangelical youth pastor who made a comment that is au courant in many Christian circles, but nevertheless wrong and destructive. The topic was the observance of Lent and other such “relics” from the past, and of course he was against it. “Where in the Bible,” he protested, “does it mention Lent?” At first glance, he’s got a point. If you construe “Biblical” as meaning “mentioned in the Bible,” then Lent is not Biblical. Then again, a lot of other things then are not Biblical, including you and me. If we were to think a little, which may be hard for evangelicals, we might learn that Lent and many other ancient traditions are actually in complete agreement with the thrust and purpose of the Holy Scriptures. Let me explain. Lent is not alone in causing confusion among Christians. Want a fight? Start talking about the meaning, purpose, necessity and mode of execution of any Christian holiday or either sacrament. Take Holy Communion, for example. Romans are rightly derided for claiming that in the celebration of the Eucharist, Christ is both re-sacrificed and physically present in the elements of bread and wine. “How foolish,” howls the Reformed Christian, “to try to make that which is past present (the Cross) and put He who is in heaven on an altar (Christ.) He’s insulting God by putting Him in a box of time and space.” Yet isn’t this the functional equivalent of what he himself does when he introduces the notions of predestination and election? In predestination he’s saying that time and history are altogether irrelevant, and in election he’s saying that the power of the Cross is limited to only certain individuals. Both Roman and Reformer, then, are trying to do the same thing: doing violence to the ideas of time and space that we might be able to explain the interplay between God’s grace and human free will. They’re both to be commended for trying, but to date, neither party has succeeded. If both are wrong, then what is right? If solutions to the riddle of the interaction of human freedom and God’s grace have proven elusive, perhaps it’s because we’re stating the problem the wrong way. Rather than explaining how a lost humanity can be saved, perhaps what we need to explain is how a saved humanity can get lost. This is indeed what a careful reading of the Bible says, indeed emphasizes, from beginning to end. You’ll find this theme in the story of racial Israel, the parables of Jesus, in Hebrews, and in the writings of John, Peter, and even Paul. All agree that humanity stands justified before the Father on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What the justified need, as Paul states so well in Romans chapter 5, is to subsequently be saved from God’s wrath. That is, once justified, the danger confronting us is that we fail to abide or remain where we’ve been put by the Cross, and become subject anew to God’s wrath, which is reserved for the ungrateful and disobedient. Viewed this way, both attempts to bring God into the present, as the Romans do, and attempts to view history from the perspective of the end of time, a la the Reformers, are not only unnecessary but misleading. What’s necessary is to stop moving God around the face of the clock, and to move man instead. We say God’s the fulcrum of the universe, yet we try to move Him to suit our needs. Since medieval times, at least, theology has been anthropomorphic in this regard, and the Reformation has reinforced the tendency. All our ruminations should be informed by the principle that God, who is outside of time, has already acted for the benefit of humanity, past, present and future, in the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. Problems arise when we think that those saving acts of Holy Week and Pentecost are somehow buried in the sands of time. Good ministry, then, should attempt to perceive God’s actions as valid and efficacious without regard for when we live and die. Whether it’s a good sermon, the celebration of a sacrament, or the observance of a holiday, it should attempt to dismantle the illusion of chronological time and take us back to when we were justified and put into a right relationship with our Creator. Baptism does this by recapitulating the death of Christ and His resurrection, as we, too, are buried and raised up, the old man dying and a new obedient person being born. The Lord’s Supper does this by rehearsing the establishment of the first covenant recorded in Genesis 15, wherein it’s Jesus’ blood, not ours, which is poured out to establish a new covenant with the Father. We were there on Easter, when proof was supplied that the law, with its penalty of death, was shown to be removed by the resurrection. We were there on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured forth on all who embraced their justification. Indeed, this is what the entire Christian calendar attempts to do, to help us better abide in Christ. This is especially true of Lent. As Jesus was in the desert 40 days, so we go without for 40 days. As he apprehended his coming trial and ultimate victory, so we, too, count the days until Easter and try to put ourselves in His shoes, however imperfectly. Is it any surprise, then, that institutions which were founded upon a better understanding of theology should find themselves underappreciated in these, less theologically robust times? The Reformation did much that is good, but it does not represent the end of the quest to better understand God and what He’s trying to do with His Church. The fact is, Roman and Reformer stand as poles in an existential struggle that could not find resolution because of the philosophical limitations of the participants. Now that we live in the age of Einstein and relativity, however, we have a view of chronological time that correctly portrays it as a function of physical creation, not as a theological absolute. With this new understanding, Christians should reexamine our ways and means and bring them up to date. Who knows, maybe relics from the past like keeping a holy Lent might present themselves in a new, and helpful, light. |