Food for Thought
This coming Wednesday is the first day of Lent. If you are wondering what it means don’t look in your Bible because the word doesn’t appear there. Actually Lent didn’t come into existence until sometime between the 2nd and 4th centuries. The intent was noble, it was intended to be a forty-day solemn season of fasting, prayer, and penance in preparation for Easter. Forty days is an interesting Biblical phrase: Moses’s fast (Exodus 24:18), Elijah’s journey to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8), and Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. Today many traditional churches emphasize honoring lent by encouraging prayer, meditation, and some type of fasting, for example ‘giving up something for lent’.
Evangelical churches by in large have not emphasized the traditional period of Lent. That is not to say that there is no need for fasting, prayer, or preparing one’s heart for the Easter season. I think it could be successfully argued that there is a more urgent need for these activities than ever before. But our ‘over busy’ world and our personal life styles demand a radical and determined commitment to change if we are to successfully improve our practicing of these basic but critical disciplines.
So, the 2026 Lenten season lies before us. What will we do with it? To the vast majority of the people of the world it will mean nothing, no action will be taken, and little if any thought will be directed to it. To a good number of folks in the Christian community it will come and go without any tangible commitment to the concepts it espouses. But what about you and I? Will we let it pass unmotivated by it, or will we use it as an opportunity to focus on spiritual issues and prepare our hearts for Easter?
Pastor Dave