What's the Story with Lent? | by Tiffany Butler
“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.”
Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter. Historically, Lent was shaped in such a way to prepare a catechumen—a person being instructed and prepared for confirmation or baptism—to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, culminating in the Easter Vigil. The 40 days of Lent arise from the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted before his public ministry commenced. However, you may notice that from Ash Wednesday to Easter, it is more than 40 days. The discrepancy is because the Sundays leading up to Easter are not counted in the 40 days; they even serve as a mini-Easter celebration in the Anglican tradition and a time to relax Lenten fasts.
Each year, Lent is inaugurated by Ash Wednesday. You may have the same question I did at one time—where do the ashes the priests use on Lent come from? Palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday are used to make the ashes. They are then mixed with oil and holy water (water consecrated by the priests). With this mixture, the priest anoints congregants for Lent with the sign of a cross on their forehead saying, “Remember, that you are dust, and to dust you shalt return” (or some variation thereof). This saying comes from Genesis 3:19 when God spoke these words to Adam and Eve after they had sinned. Therefore, the words remind us of our finitude and call us to repentance.
There is something profound about using ashes from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. As we read in scripture, when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, this symbolized that the King had come! In fitting celebration, the crowds threw palm branches before Jesus as he rode into town. However, within days, all but a few had turned away from Jesus. This connection speaks to me; our trust can quickly turn to denial and hardness of heart. That is all the more reason why the church calendar nourishes us. Every year we enter into Lent and check our hearts; we adjust our loves and lives to attune them to God in preparation for a truly joyful Easter Sunday celebration! It is the spring cleaning of the church calendar.
The word Lent is an Old English means ‘lengthening’ or ‘spring.’ Springtime is the season when new life wrestles against seed walls to eventually burst forth from the ground in new life. For us, Lent can mark the same wrestling through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to allow true life to take shape and our old shell to slough off.