Ash Wednesday

At some point, Christmas overtook Easter as the biggest celebration for the church. We all now spend far more money and energy celebrating the birth of Jesus than we do the resurrection, but this wasn’t always the case. In fact, it took several centuries for the celebration of Jesus’ birth even to become normal and widespread in the church. But from the beginning of Christianity, the church celebrated the resurrection of Jesus as its principal feast of the year.

Lent, the 40-day period of preparation for Easter that begins on Ash Wednesday, grew out of Biblical examples. Noah, Moses, the Israelites, and Elijah all waited in periods of fasting or preparation (for 40 days or 40 years) before encountering God and receiving new blessings and ministries. Great encounters with God, great blessings from God, and great ministries in the name of God are all appropriately preceded by a period of fasting and preparation. It isn’t that God needs our preparation before he can show up—he can do what he wants, whenever he wants! But we need the preparation, so that we are ready for him! Moses needed 40 years as a shepherd in the wilderness before he was prepared to encounter God in the burning bush, and the Israelites needed 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before they were prepared to enter the promised land. The fact that Jesus submitted to this pattern—40 days of fasting before beginning his ministry—should demonstrate to us that we would be wise to follow it as well.

This doesn’t fit a culture saturated with instant gratification, but our souls need preparation before celebrating the resurrection. They need yearly seasons like Lent to call us back to the things that matter. They need periods of fasting and contrition, where recurring sin is dealt with, distractions are set aside, and our energy is devoted to works of mercy, so that we are ready to meet God again. Some of these seasons need to be painfully long—40 days long!—so that the preparation sinks deep enough into the hard places of our hearts, softening the soil before God arrives.

As we move toward Easter, I encourage you to take seriously the idea that we are preparing for an encounter with the risen Lord. This is what the celebration of Easter is about, after all! Prepare through fasting, prayer, Bible-reading, repentance, and works of mercy. These are the spiritual disciplines appropriate to seasons of preparation. Pray expectantly that God would reveal himself to you anew this year, calling you deeper into his love for and mission to the world, and spend the next six weeks preparing as if he will answer this prayer!

Steven+