Lent Symbolic of Christ's Sacrifice

Current! In Carmel - #15 - Lent
February 20, 2007

Lent Symbolic of Christ’s Sacrifice
By Bob Walters

Today is Mardi Gras, French in reverse for “Fat Tuesday.”

The resurrection of New Orleans, while laudable, is not the reason for the holiday.

Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, begins Lent, the Holy season of Christ’s last days on earth. To Christians it is a season of denial, fasting, self-examination and repentance, once, of course, they get home from New Orleans.

Lent represents Christ’s 40 days of denial and resisting Satan’s temptation in the desert. Tradition among many Christian denominations is to “give up” something for lent, symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

The idea is to give up something important, to honor Christ’s command that we must “die to ourselves” to serve God and serve others. Too many people give up watermelon or something that doesn’t constitute much of a sacrifice.

Lent isn’t in the Bible but was known in the early centuries as the quadragesima pasche, “40 days before Easter,” mentioned in the writings of the famous Council of Nicea in 325 AD.

Fat Tuesday was about having a feast the day before the Lenten fast. On Ash Wednesday, which became common tradition in the 11th century, ashes representing our sin are placed on the foreheads of penitents, those who are sinners before God.

Um, that’s everybody.

The ashes look like a smudge but are administered by a priest with his thumb in the sign of the cross. You’ll see them on people’s foreheads tomorrow. It used to be they didn’t wash them off until the Thursday before Easter, aka Maundy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper of Christ.

If you count the 40 days of Lent on the calendar you’ll note that Easter is April 8, which is actually 46 days away. The six intervening Sundays are already Holy and don’t count as days of Lenten fasting.

Walters, a Carmel resident, hopes New Orleans hosts the Super Bowl in 2012, right after Indy hosts it in 2011. Contact him at rlwcom@aol.com