Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period of preparation for Easter. From very early on the church believed that it was important to prepare for the celebration of the resurrection through fasting, penitence, prayer, reading Scripture, and gifts to the poor. It might strike you as odd that that the early church felt that we need to prepare for Easter for 40 days, and it might strike you as odd that preparation for the celebration doesn’t mean cleaning and decorating the home or buying the ingredients for the big meal. Fasting, alms-giving, penitence, Scripture reading, and prayer are strange sorts of preparation!
It is odd, because our culture doesn’t do this sort of thing. We aren’t particularly patient; we tend to think in minutes and hours rather than weeks and months. Preparation for us is something that happens a day or two before, not for weeks and weeks! But the ancient church believed that the great feasts of the church—Easter and Christmas—were something to prepare for, and preparation was a movement of the soul over a long period of time. The early Christians saw this pattern all over the Bible. Noah underwent a period of fasting and waiting on the ark as the rain fell for 40 days before he came out and encountered God. Moses waited in Midian for 40 years before he met God and returned to Egypt to free his people. He fasted on Sinai for 40 days before he received the Law from God and saw God himself. The Israelites waited in the desert for 40 years before entering the promised land. Elijah fasted for 40 days before he encountered God at Mount Horeb. Jesus fasted for 40 days before beginning his ministry of salvation.
The early church rightly taught that preparing for an encounter with God or for a new season of ministry was the Biblical pattern. According to the Bible, the best way to prepare was to pray, to fast from things that distract us, to pay particular attention to confession and repentance, to increase our devotion to the Scriptures and worship, and to give to the needy.
We need to “mortify” ourselves; that is, we need to put to death our desires through fasting and confession, so that we will be prepared to meet God in the celebration of the resurrection of the Son. We don’t earn anything by doing this. God doesn’t love us more if we keep a rigorous fast. Fasting can make people self-righteous if they think it gives them favor with God or makes them better than others. We fast, very simply, because we need it: we are distracted, weighed down by the world, weighed down by our fleshly desires. We need to be purged so that we can see God clearly, and Lent is the great period of preparation and purging, of mortification and prayer, while we wait to celebrate the resurrection again. I once heard someone say, “If you are driving through the mountains with mud on the windshield, taking the mud off doesn’t make you more in the mountains. But it sure helps you see them more clearly!” Fasting doesn’t earn our place with God, but it can help us see him!
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Tonight, you will be reminded of your mortality, reminded of your sinfulness, and called to confession, prayer, and fasting. But you are being called to fasting so that you might be ready to rejoice again in the resurrection. Our hope is not in our fasting or spiritual disciplines. Thankfully, Lent does not last forever! Our hope is in the fact that the Son of God became man, died on our behalf, and conquered Hell, Satan, and death by rising again from the dead. He is now at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, and by his Spirit we can enter the very presence of the Father in heaven with him. This is our hope!
Steven+