We officially entered the season of Lent this week, the period of 40 days which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar.  Lent actually begins with Ash Wednesday and is a season of reflection, repentance and reconnection.  We reflect during this season by replicating Jesus’s sacrifice and withdrawal in the desert for 40 days and recall the events leading up to and including Jesus’ crucifixion by Rome. Lent is so named from an old English word meaning “lengthen” and is observed in spring when the days begin to get longer. The Palm crosses used in the Palm Sunday service from the past year are blessed and burned and those ashes are placed on the believer’s forehead as a sign of penitence and mortality with the words from Genesis 3:19:  Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return.

Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday sort of “kicks off” the Lenten season however.  It’s a day of penitence, to clean the soul, and a day of celebration as the last chance to feast before Lent begins.  It gets its name from the ritual of “shriving” that Christians used to undergo.  Shriving was the act of confessing your sins and receiving absolution from them. Some Christian churches observe Lent in the 21^st century in the same way, by using it as a time to pray and ask for penance. They mark Lent by fasting from both food and festivities.  Most people in today’s world do not fast for the entirety of Lent.  More commonly these days, believers surrender a certain vice such as chocolate, sweets of any kind or maybe going to movies.  Whatever the sacrifice, it is a reflection of Jesus’ deprivation in the wilderness and a test of self-discipline and repentance.

Palm Sunday is the culmination of Lent.  It celebrates Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, so when the crosses used in the Palm Sunday service are converted to ashes, the worshippers are reminded that defeat and crucifixion swiftly followed triumph. Ultimately, however, using the ashes to mark the cross on the believer’s forehead signifies that through Christ’s death and resurrection, all Christians can be free from sin and we reconnect with the wonderful knowledge of God’s unconditional love.

Everything in the season of Lent has symbolic meaning and derives from old church rituals like most of our church season practices. While it may seem a bit confusing at times and hard to piece it all together, everything leads us to a quite simple and comforting concept that is very easy to understand: 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.

That is where this Lenten journey will end in 40 days.  Catch you on the other side!!

Patty