Lest I Forget: Observing Lent as Evangelicals

As we have said many times before, our purpose in observing the church calendar has been to rehearse the Gospel year-by-year just as we do week-by-week. And yet, of all the seasons that are part of such an approach, Lent is probably the one we are most uncertain of. Perhaps even suspicious of. Meanwhile, it's the season that some of us might be especially excited to observe. I’d first like to quell any suspicions that we might have, then inform the uncertain, and then focus the excited.

First, to the suspicious, let’s be clear that Lent, while full of biblical types and allusions, is a man-made tradition. As is always true of observing man-made traditions, it’s only helpful as it serves the worship of the church.  If, God forbid, we come to the point of actually binding our consciences in the observance of the calendar — meaning, if we get to the point where neglecting to observe certain days or seasons is equated with sin — then we’ll have failed to heed the teaching of Paul in Colossians 2 (ESV):

(L)et no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath (v.16)...

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— (v.20)...

These have…an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (v.23)

  We do not need regulations, laws, and practices for their own sake. What we do need is the gospel, week-by-week, year-by-year. And we do well not only to fill our corporate worship with the gospel and with Scripture but also to shape our worship by the gospel and by Scripture. We do well to observe Israel’s encounter with the Lord at Sinai, or the encounter in Isaiah 6, or the establishing of the temple in Nehemiah 8, or the structure of Psalms 50-51. The Lord and His Word are revealed, His people confess, He applies His atonement or assures His forgiveness, He seals His covenant with a feast, and He sends them out with His commissioning.

So, in our weekly worship, the Lord calls us into His presence, revealing Himself by the Word, invoking the confession of our sin, our need of His forgiveness and renewal, and our acknowledgement that we cannot do this ourselves. In our yearly patterns, Advent functions like a call to worship — “Prepare the way for the Lord” — to which we respond with the adoration of Christmas and Epiphany. We follow with Lent, lamenting our sin and the grief it causes. And here is where the resounding assurance meets us: in sins forgiven and restoration accomplished through a life of sorrow, a ministry of healing, an undeserving, torturous death, an empty tomb, a glorified body, a mission and empowering for the time being, and a promised full restoration. This is our story, this is our song.

That’s for the suspicious. Now, for the uncertain among us, a brief history.

Lent is commonly known for being a forty-day fast, not including Lord’s Days, that ends with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. The name Lent is simply derived from the Saxon word for spring[1] and the establishment of forty days is meant to imitate the forty-day fast of Jesus in the wilderness[2] and His temptation by Satan.[3] Jesus’ fast, of course, is reminiscent of the forty-year wilderness wandering of Israel, but also of Elijah’s forty-day fast on his way to Mt. Horeb in 1 Kings 19.[4]

There are other allusions that people have drawn, but here’s the thing that’s probably at the heart of our uncertainty: Lent is, again, a man-made tradition which has, sadly, often encouraged an unhealthy obsession with human guilt rather than the grace of God held forth in our Lord Jesus. But history seems to confirm that this season was established from an earnest desire for pure and biblically rooted worship, a season for intentionally preparing souls for their baptism into the church on Easter morning. A season for gauging one's maturity in faith, for putting off the old self and putting on the new, made after the image of its Creator.

If Grace Church had been a body of believers in the ancient world, what we call “Starting Point Class” or “Baptism Interviews” would have been a central part of a forty-day, churchwide fast leading up to Easter. This was someone’s idea for uniting the worship and discipleship of the church with patterns and types found in Scripture. It was meant to be a help, not a hindrance, to serve one’s conscience, not to bind it.

Lent has also been meant as a season for intentionally meditating on the suffering of the Eternal Word made flesh, genuinely lamenting the sin that requires it. And here I turn to address the more excited ones of us.

Fasting during Lent is not meant to be a simple giving up of a worldly delight for a brief season in order to feel better about ourselves, or to kick a coffee habit or a social media dependence. And, it bears remembering that observing a fast does nothing to help us retain the righteousness received only by faith in Christ. The point is not to call our standing before God into question, the point is to gauge our maturity. Are there evils in my heart that I have allowed to lurk about, or discontent that I’ve allowed to fester, or wounds that have gone untreated, or indulgences that have taken over my schedule and imagination? Are there weeds cropping up that I’ve done nothing about: old habits, old fears, old guilt, old grudges?  Let’s address these before the Lord. He has gone to the cross to free us from those. Let’s lay our burdens and our failures there yet again, and claim our need of Him again.

We’re not here simply to kick habits. “Rend your hearts and not your garments,” wrote the prophet (Joel 2:13); in essence, do not content yourselves with a surface level fasting. “‘Is not this the fast that I choose,’” says the Lord in Isaiah 58, “… to loose the bonds of wickedness… and to break every yoke?” Every yoke of sin and injustice, that is.

Mourning the sin that requires Christ’s suffering, does not mean that we just heap up guilt or regulations on ourselves. But, if we were never to associate our sin with Christ’s pain, or to bring our rampant insecurities to Him — to nail them to cross and leave them in the tomb — if we were never to consider fasting that we might learn something of the suffering Jesus endured and the limits of our own obedience, then I’m not sure that we’d be living lives truly formed by the gospel.

In other words, I came to the cross once, I saw the light, He forgave my sins, I don’t need to acknowledge my guilt or to confess my sins anymore! There’s a deceptive seed of truth in that statement, but of course we need to acknowledge our sins. We’re still in our sinful flesh, fighting the war of Romans 7 day by day, living in the victory of Romans 8, yes, but also in the groaning of Romans 8.

Now, observing Lent is not the only way to do this. But it is one way that the church has sought to do it together, drawing inspiration from the Word, and focus and encouragement from the common experience of fellow saints. It is one way of laboring to live a life of gratitude together, to quote Heidelberg. In order to live and die in the comfort of our salvation, we must understand how great our sin and misery are.[5]

Part of how we remember is in the setting aside of seasons for remembrance, or the use of songs, images, and poetry that help us rehearse the gospel story. “Lest I forget Gethsemane, / Lest I forget Thine agony, / Lest I forget Thy love for me, / Lead me to Calvary.”[6]  Songs and seasons and artistic expressions, these are not just “nice things” that we employ to make church more interesting. No, singing and artistry are a vital act of our faith. Our seasons, our songs, our art, or lack thereof, are all a key means by which we faithfully remember all that is true for us in Christ.

We know how powerful a hold art can have over us, a power that must be wielded and received with self-control and discernment. But it remains true that one of the most reiterated commandments in the Bible is to sing; and that when God made the world He made it teeming with textures and colors; and that when He gave the blueprint for a gathering place with His people, it was not merely functional, it was gorgeous and full of visual metaphors and reminders. 

When the Prophets spoke, they often did it in song: “‘... bring me a musician,’” said Elisha (2 Kings 3:15, ESV), “And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him.” Before Moses died, he taught them a song so that the commandments and warnings would stick in their minds and the minds of their children, that even their nursery songs would stand as a witness against them. And before Jesus and His disciples departed for Gethsemane, they sang a hymn.

We need seasons and songs and art panels and sermons and ordinances that help us remember, lest we forget. We will employ such expressions in the weeks ahead to aid our remembrance.

We won’t hold a “regulated fast” as other traditions do. We’ve called for fasts on occasion — in advance of the National Day of Prayer, for instance — and you might consider starting some kind of fast for yourself during these remaining forty days. Or, instead of a fast, maybe you could set some kind of regulated feast for yourself: a forty-day Bible study or a particular reading plan done with a friend. Maybe you use the Sundays in Lent to get together with a brother or sister or neighbor you’re not usually inclined to talk to, just as Jesus came for you, a stranger to His grace. There are many things you could do. The point is to whet your appetite for Passion week, to take stock of your maturity, to meditate on your Lord’s suffering for your sake, and to seek to walk in closer communion with Him.

One thing you’ll notice during Lent is that we’ll use many more Passion hymns than we’re used to singing on a Sunday morning. That is, hymns and songs that relate directly to the events of Good Friday. The cross will always have a central place in our songs, but there are certain hymns we’re used to singing only on Good Friday that we’ll now spread throughout the month. Another thing we’ll do is draw our weekly Scripture readings from portions of the Epistles and sit with the instruction and encouragement of the Apostles to the church on how to live and worship together in light of what has been done for us in Christ.

I encourage you to enter into these weeks not with suspicion, uncertainty, or impulse, but with an intentionality to remember well, lest we forget, and to prepare well for observing the events of Holy Week and the Passion of our Lord Jesus, all for us and for our salvation.

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[1] Richard Lobs III, “Some Questions and Answers About Lent,” essay, in The Services of the Christian Year (Nashville, TN: Star Song Publishing Group, 1994), 230–31, 230.

[2] Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; Mark 1:12–13

[3] Cate MacDonald, “Lent,” essay, in Let us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home, Epiphany & Lent (Oro Valley, AZ: Doulos Resources, 2013), 23–48, 26.

[4] And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched (Elijah) and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God (vv.7–8, ESV).

[5] Adapted from Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 2: Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

[6] Jennie Evelyn Hussey. Lead Me to Calvary. 1921. https://hymnary.org/text/king_of_my_life_i_crown_thee_now.