Not long ago, on a public social media platform on the internet, a recent convert to Confessional Lutheranism expressed some misgivings about the themes and emphases of Lenten services in this person’s new church.
This person had come from a church where Lent was never discussed, and where no such special season was observed. Instead, everything was always upbeat and cheerful all the time.
But in the Lutheran Church, by comparison, Lent seemed to be a real downer, and brought out feelings of depression in this person. So, this new Lutheran was having a hard time adjusting to the idea of Lent and to what Lent seemed to be about. I responded in this way:
“The discipline and structure of the church year are teaching tools for all of Christian life. In Lent we learn in a more focused way about humility before God and repentance for sin, but we are not humble only during Lent, and do not repent only during Lent.
“During the Easter season we learn in a more focused way about God’s gift of eternal life and the joy of our Christian hope for heaven and for our own future resurrection. But we do not celebrate these things only during the Easter season.
“The message and blessing of Christ’s resurrection are present also during Lent, and reminders of our need to take our sin seriously are present also during Easter. During the course of the whole church year, in the annual sequence of festivals, seasons, and observances, we learn the whole counsel of God, not only cerebrally but also experientially.
“But the whole counsel of God is also recapped on each Sunday and indeed on each day of the year: when law and gospel are proclaimed and meditated upon, when sin is confessed and absolution is pronounced and believed, and when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated and received.
“Lent is and should be a special time to learn about sin, repentance, and humility; and about God’s wrath against wickedness and evil. These lessons are needed not only during Lent but they are needed for every other season and for a lifetime. And so, learn them during Lent, but apply them throughout the year.
“And in the meantime, what you learned during Easter can still be applied during Lent, and always. The risen Christ forgives you and renews your faith also during Lent. God reveals his Fatherly love and mercy also during Lent. The Holy Spirit renews your joy and Christian hope also during Lent.”
Indeed, we as a congregation, and as individual Christians, are now beginning our annual journey through the season of Lent, so that we, too, can relearn – once again – the special lessons about God and about our relationship with God that Lent is designed to teach.
Lent is not the only time of the year when we ponder our sins and their harmful effect on us and on our relationships. But it is a time when we learn – in some unique ways – how to ponder our sins all the time, and how to repent of those sins all the time.
Some of the historic traditions of Lent contribute toward this learning process. One of these traditions is giving up a certain pleasure during this season – often a food item that you really like – in order to be reminded – physically and mentally – of the need to remove from your souls the sins that you improperly love and cling to, through remorse and repentance.
Another such tradition is the imposition of ashes on the forehead on the first day of Lent – but just on the first day. In today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, Jesus tells us:
“When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place…”
So, on Ash Wednesday, the physical ashes remind us of something that will then have no physical manifestation for the rest of the season, when our faces will be clean.
But what the physical ashes represent on the first day of Lent will still be there – in our hearts and minds – on all the other days of Lent, as the lessons of the whole season are learned and internalized: namely the importance of humility before God, and of dependence on God.
We of ourselves – because of our inherited sinfulness, and because of our own personal sins – are filled with death, and cannot keep ourselves alive. Together with Adam our common ancestor, and all other human beings, we by nature are dust, and to dust we shall return.
Our only hope for eternal life, and for a future resurrection from the dead, is in God, who forgives the sins of which we repent, and who heals the deep wounds in our soul that our sins have inflicted on us. These are humbling thoughts, but they are not depressing thoughts, because God does indeed forgive and heal us.
If a doctor told you that you have a terminal disease and that there is no cure, then maybe you would be depressed by that news. But that’s not what God tells us – during Lent or at any other time.
It might sting a bit to be told that we are infected with the disease of sin and death. Yet a church that never tells this to its members is not serving its members very well.
We need to know this, so that we will then seek and accept the cure. And there is a cure for the sin and death that afflict us.
God’s forgiveness, and the healing power of God’s gospel, are the cure. And God does forgive and heal, because of Christ and his suffering and death on our behalf. St. John tells us in his Gospel that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
The Prophet Isaiah – many centuries before it happened in human history – already knows, by means of a timeless revelation from God, that Jesus the Messiah “was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Jesus himself tells us that “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus also invites us: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
This invitation to learn certainly applies to us at all times, but it applies especially during the season of Lent, when the texts and hymns of the season are teaching us the way of humility and joy before God, and the way of repentance and faith in God.
And in these words, Jesus prepares us – even during Lent – for the special lessons, and for the saving truth, of Easter:
“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
“Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made, and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts, that, lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ.” Amen.