Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent

As hard as it might be to imagine, Lent is almost upon us!
 
We say this every year, and yet we need the reminder each year: we need to prepare for the great feasts of the Christian calendar. Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection are simply too big to comprehend without preparing our hearts, minds, and souls. If we don’t humble and prepare our hearts, it can be very hard to see and receive Jesus himself in the feasts of Christmas and Easter. The celebration can easily crowd out an intimate awareness of Jesus.
 
The Christian life is a pilgrimage deeper and deeper into the heart of God, and along the way, there are key moments when our hearts are opened to receive him afresh. These key stops aren’t limited to Christmas and Easter, but these high, holy days are certainly chief among them. But we won’t be ready for these meetings with God unless we humble ourselves and rid ourselves of the various distractions and hinderances.
 
Lent is a season of throwing off hindrances. We throw off sin through vigorous confession and repentance, we throw off selfishness through purposeful almsgiving, we throw off self-reliance through a renewed focus on prayer, and we throw off distractions and pleasures through significant fasting. It is a penitential season, when purposeful awareness of our sin and mortality should drive us to the cross over and over in a posture of self-renunciation.
 
We focus on both of these things (sin and mortality) on Ash Wednesday. This day of fasting (of the whole year, only Good Friday’s fast should be deeper!) is a moment to come face-to-face with the fact that we will die and the fact that we are in desperate need of mercy. We don’t like to face these truths, but unless we face them, we will not truly realize what Jesus has done for us. And so, face them we will, as we fast throughout the day and gather together on Wednesday evening.
 
But Ash Wednesday begins on Shrove Tuesday! Even though Shrove Tuesday is a time of joy—dinner together is a blessing—it is supposed to be the beginning of this purposeful posture of self-examination and confession. The word “shrove” comes from an archaic word that means confession and absolution. Shrove Tuesday is the first step of Lent, just as packing one’s bags is the first step of taking a trip. Even before Lent begins, we begin by taking stock of the state of our souls.
 
Use Shrove Tuesday as a moment to take stock of what needs to be confessed, and then spend Ash Wednesday in penitence and fasting before you join the congregation in prayer. These acts of humility are not acts of morbidity or self-hatred, but instead simply the necessary honesty that we all must have if we are to come into the presence of the merciful one, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
 
In Christ,
Steven+