The Strange Case of the Disappearing Lent

Lent disappeared. Somehow without my noticing, the 40-day period before Easter vanished.

Hot Cross Bun

Well, I'm being alarmist: Lent isn't gone for everybody. Catholics still celebrate Lent -- I know because I've seen people walking around with ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday and talking about giving up  soda or chocolate or booze for Lent. I've bought hot cross buns in the grocery store and noticed fish appearing on menus.

But in most evangelical churches, mine included, Lent is not mentioned. Possibly it disappeared for the same reason other liturgical standards like the Lord's Prayer, the Doxology and the Apostles' Creed are gone:  to distance our brand of Protestantism from Catholicism or to eliminate rituals that might be intimidating or confusing to new churchgoers.  Now, that's commendable and our congregation has grown enormously in the past five years, but in trying to do away with traditions and rituals, I wondered if we have thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Perhaps some Christian traditions like Lent should be retained because of their deep meaning to a longtime Christian.

Forty years ago, in Creston Iowa where I grew up, Lent was observed (pardon the pun) religiously. The church used Lent as a time to prepare for the holiest day in the Christian religion, Easter. We didn't go so far as to give things up (that would've been too Catholic, even for Presbyterians), but Lent was the subject of many a sermon.

The best parts of Lent in Creston were the community Lenten services. Each Sunday night a different church hosted. Being a prodigious walker in those days,  I got a chance to see the insides of churches I had walked by. I also learned that there were many ways to worship within Protestantism, even in our small town.I remember seeing a fold-down kneeler and having no idea what it was until I saw somebody using it. Over the course of the six weeks, our family visited many churches, heard a variety of messages, and were treated to supper after each service in the church basement. It was an ecumenical and special way to lead up to Easter.

I miss Lent, so to ready myself for Easter, I've been reading daily selections from the book Bread and Wine-- Readings for Lent and Easter. This poem was in the book:

To Keep a True Lent

Is this a Fast, to keep

  the larder lean?

   And clean

From the fat of veals and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish

  of flesh, yet still

     To fill

the platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,

  Or ragg'd to go,

     Or show

A down-cast look and sour?

No: 'tis a Fast to dole

    Thy sheaf of wheat

         And meat

With a hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife

  And old debate,

     And hate;

To circumcise thy life,

To show a heart grief-rent;

   To starve thy sin,

      Not bin;

And that's to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick