Meditation for February, 2007

Lent, the forty days excluding Sundays before Easter, are observed in many Christian churches as a time of fasting and repenting of sins. The word Lent is from the Old English, lencten, which means spring with reference to the lengthening days.

In 2007, the season of Lent begins on February 21^st with Ash Wednesday. There will be a service on this day, in some denominations, during which the pastor will mark the foreheads of the congregants with a cross of ashes. This is to signify intent, on the part of those so marked, to examine one’s life during the period of Lent in order to ensure that one is on the right Christian track and spiritual path.

Lent is a solemn time. We walk with Christ toward Holy Week, which culminates in Good Friday, the day of Christ’s crucifixion and death. We may make a special effort in the walk by fasting, or abstinence from certain foods or pleasures, in order to focus on Christ’s life and suffering and our own spiritual lives as Christians.

We try to follow Christ more closely and live like him. In the Bible, we are told that Christ was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for forty days before beginning his mission on earth. In the wilderness, he was tempted by Satan but did not succumb. Lent is our own mini-version of Christ’s wilderness experience.

This time of Lent is an opportunity to look at where we are now and where we are going in our spiritual lives; a transition into being better Christians. It is a process, likened by some to the metamorphosis from the earthbound caterpillar stage through cocoon stage emerging into flying butterfly. In fact, the butterfly is one of the symbols of resurrection.

Good Friday is not the ultimate end of Lent. Christianity would be a very sad religion if that was true. No, the ultimate end of Lent is the new beginning of Easter Sunday—the day of the triumphal resurrection of Christ from the grave and of us as renewed and rejuvenated Christians.

 © Judith Lawrence, February 2007

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