The season of Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday this week, is not really a season of the Church at all. In the early Church it was originally a time of preparation for those who were to be baptised at Easter. The catechumens, as they were called, usually undertook a rigorous period of fasting and abstinence as a final part of their getting ready for initiation into the Church at the Easter liturgy (baptisms then usually only occurred at that time of year). It was also undertaken by those Christians who had been excommunicated for grave and public sin and who would be readmitted to the sacramental life of the church after a period of penance. It was not long before the Church realized the benefit of all Christians joining these particular categories of people in a season marked by prayer and fasting. It is this sense of preparation, and so of eager expectation, with Good Friday and Easter always in view, that characterizes Lent. In that sense it is the same as Advent which precedes Christmas. 

It is sometimes thought that Lent has its origins in a re-enactment of Jesus’s fasting in the wilderness for 40 days (see Mark 1. 12-13) where he was tempted by Satan (see Matthew 4. 1-11 and Luke 4. 1-13). However, that association came quite late in the history of the Church, although it may have influenced the decision to make the period 40 days. The word “Lent” comes from an early English word which simply means the season of Spring.

So this period in the Church calendar is not simply a period of restraint and self-examination for our own good, even if giving things up may have some health benefits. The prayer and fasting is not intended simply to make us better Christians, or even to remind us of the trials to which Jesus was subject during his time in the wilderness. These are useful side effects and it is unfortunate that Lent  nowadays often simply means a time of abstinence – no wine or chocolate until Easter and then wow!

Lent therefore is really a looking forward – a time of anticipation and of getting ready. George Herbert even described it as a “Deare feast” and welcomed it heartily. True he then says that “The scriptures bid us fast: the Church says, now” but his overall theme is not of gloom and despondency, rather it is a proper taking stock and self-assessment as we approach the most important events in the Christian year (1). Good Friday and Easter are all about God’s extraordinary love for us. His coming in to this world as a human being, just like us, dying on the cross for our sins and then rising again. Such events can barely be taken in and we need time to assimilate them, to process them, even though they may be very familiar to us. It is important to focus on them.

That is probably where the “giving   up” comes in – not an attempt to imitate Jesus, but a disposal of some superficial things which preoccupy us and prevent us from focussing on what is really important. Focusing on what God has done for us through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Lent has a solemn, even sometimes sombre, feel and this is reflected in the liturgy and in the appearance of the church building (no flowers etc.), but again this is not about decent self-restraint. It is more about helping us to focus on what is to come – clearing our hearts and minds and becoming more simple so that the impact of Good Friday and Easter are much more powerful. They also reflect life. We cannot always be in a state of ecstatic joy and celebration for there are times of difficulty and hurt, times when we are deeply challenged, perhaps especially at the moment. We have the ultimate victory through what Jesus has done for us but we have to recognize those sad and solemn times too. The great thing is that God is with us in all of this, and his way of the cross shows  us that he understands because he has been through it all too. 

In his poem “Ash Wednesday, 1930” TS Eliot grapples with the implications of his new-found Christian faith (he had recently become a Roman Catholic), anticipating Good Friday and Easter and what that means to him. It is a “time of tension between dying and birth” but “the lost heart stiffens and rejoices” and so much in the world teaches us that “Our peace is in his will”(2).

May we use this Lent to rediscover something of what God means to us and what we mean to him, keeping in mind its profound and glorious conclusion.

Tony Bushell

• (1)Lent by George Herbert in his collected edition The Church. Reproduced in The English Poems of George Herbert (J M Dent, 1974) 
• (2) The Complete Poems and Plays of T S Eliot (Faber, 1969)