And so we come to the 2nd day of Lent, 2012.
Today, I want to explore VERY briefly the significance of the number of days in Lent. Yesterday, I mentioned that there are 40 days in Lent, that 2 of those days are also part of the liturgical “season” known as the Easter Triduum (three days of Easter), and that between Ash Wednesday (1st day of Lent) and Holy Saturday there are 47 days. I further explained in brief that Sundays do not count as Days of Lent.
As I type this, the obvious question arises: “Just what IS Lent, anyhow?”
Considering my motto of “Never explain in 10 words what can be explained in 1000” let me back up a bit. Some churches are “liturgical” in nature, others are not. By that I mean, some church denominations look at a year from the perspective of “Liturgical Seasons” which in some way reflect the life of Jesus. Other denominations don’t really follow such a course. Who is right? Both, neither, who cares?
I was getting ready to go into an expose of the various seasons, but really, it’s not necessary for my purpose in today’s post. Perhaps later, and only if asked, or if I get hard pressed for something else to write about! Let it suffice that Lent is one of those liturgical seasons. It is the season of 40 days of preparation for Easter, as celebrated in western “liturgical” churches.
Why 40 days? Why not 21? or 7? Or <insert your favorite number here>? The reason 40 days is selected here has everything to do with what Easter Sunday is. I think I can argue relatively successfully that of all events in the Christian calendar, Easter is the most important, as it is the culmination of what most of us believe as Christians. All other events are necessary prerequisites to Easter, but are largely pointless without Easter. To the majority of Christians, Easter is the day Jesus rose from the dead. It is the day upon which our salvation is hinges. Again, today’s purpose is not to explain what Easter is, but what Lent is, so I’m going to leave that previous claim hanging there for you, my readers, to either accept or not.
Furthermore, Christian teaching is that Easter Sunday is the paramount expression of God’s Grace to us as humankind. Grace is unearned, undeserved. There is nothing, Christianity teaches us, that we can DO to DESERVE our salvation. Salvation is God’s free gift given to us as the result of the free gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to death and then resurrection. We can’t earn it.
And yet, we always will try! Lent began as an attempt by the early church (earliest reference that I’ve found, by reference from another writer, is around the latter middle part of the 3rd Century CE (270 or thereabouts).
Lent has traditionally been a period of penetance and preparation.
So now we come back to that question, Why 40 days, and not some other number? Open your bibles, and look for references to 40.
- 40 days and 40 nights – the period of rainfall at the time of Noah which expurgated evil (for a time) from the earth.
- 40 days – the period of time Moses spent on the mountain prior to receiving the 10 commandments.
- 40 days – the period of time Moses spent on the mountain AFTER the “Incident of the Golden Calf”
- 40 years – the period of time the Israelites wandered in the desert in punishment for failure to trust God.
- 40 days – the period of time Jesus spent in the wilderness/desert prior to the start of his ministry
And the number 40 appears something like 146 times in the bible, almost always in the same context of probation or penitance or preparation.
I like to link Lent to just three of those events: The flood, the time of the Israelites in the desert and the period of Jesus’s temptation and preparation in the wilderness.
Come back tomorrow when I attempt, poorly I’m sure, to explain my reasons for selecting just those three.
On The Road II 