No Short Shrift to Lenten Season

Spirituality Column #171
February 16, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

No Short Shrift to Lenten Season
By Bob Walters

Shrovetide? Fastnacht? Pancakes, anyone?

How about … Mardi Gras, Carnival, aka Shrove Tuesday?

This week begins the ancient Christian season of Lent, 40 days of fasting, self-examination, prayer, and penance observed by Roman Catholics and traditional Protestants beginning Ash Wednesday (Feb. 17) leading up to Easter. Orthodox Christians begin Lent two days earlier on “Clean Monday.”

“Shrove” means “give a full hearing” or “hear confessions.” The faithful cleanse their souls by confessing their sins Shrove Tuesday prior to Ash Wednesday (“short shrift” means “not fully hearing”). “Fastnacht” means “night before fasting” and also is a German/Dutch yeast donut. Eating pancakes in Shrovetide used up fat and eggs which were verboten during Lent. “Easter eggs” likely originated to celebrate fasting’s end.

What some of the faithful often did (and still do) – human nature being what it is and with 40 days of abstinence looming – was party their brains out during Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”) or Carnival (“end of meat”), misbehaving on a magnitude worthy of 40 days of penance.

Easter in 2010, for everyone, is Sunday, April 4. Western and Orthodox Easters usually are on separate dates. This has to do with the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, Hebrew, Julian and Gregorian calendars, Passover, ecclesiastical dates of the Vernal Equinox, and the Paschal Moon. Google “Easter Date” if you’re thirsty for more.

In the West, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox March 21. This year April 4 follows a March 30 full moon.

Scheduling Easter would have been easier if someone had simply written down the date Christ was crucified. Scholars tend to land on April 3, 33 AD. No one is sure.

But that brings up a huge point: the New Testament never mentions observing dates, feasts, seasons or holidays, or even the Sabbath, as a condition of salvation.

Humanity’s great gift of eternal communion with God through the fully-divine, fully-human person of Jesus Christ is not a matter of temporal festivals. Redemption, salvation and eternal life are entirely matters of 24/7/365 faith in Christ, which we exhibit by obeying the two great commandments – loving God and loving others.

That could explain why dates for Christ’s birth and death aren’t known. Christ very plainly tells us salvation is about faith (Luke 7:50, Ephesians 2:8), not records.

I believe God hides – and can be found – in our hearts, not on our calendars.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) isn’t knocking church traditions and urges Bible Christians to study more church history, even though reason suggests there are no dates in eternity.

Lent: Give Up or Give More?

Spirituality Column #120
February 24, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Lent: Give Up or Give More?
By Bob Walters

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is next week. Thus begins a 46-day run-up to Easter, the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection signifying the fulfillment of God’s promise of everlasting life.

I like Lent. It’s not in the Bible but it’s a tradition that goes back to the fourth century A.D., before the great schisms of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) churches.

When Luther and the subsequent Protestants rebelled in the 1500s, their re-formed Christian but non-Catholic churches largely followed the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical, or church, calendar and traditions.

As a young boy in the 1960s Episcopal Church, to me Lent meant much the same functionally as it did to the Catholics. Ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, and you “gave up” something for Lent. It was a symbol of sacrifice, what the monks would consider ascetic (harsh discipline) self-denial.

To “give up” something for Lent was a big deal. It seemed, well, pious … in a good way. It had to be something you liked and was available; no fair giving up, say, watermelon, because it wasn’t in season. But you learned to be strategic. One year I gave up “candy.” Big mistake. The next year, I gave up Reese Cups. I liked Reese Cups, but did just fine with a Clark bar.

I am now an active member of a Bible-based, Jesus-believing independent Christian mega-church – East 91st Street Christian – that does not observe the ecclesiastical calendar outside of Easter Sunday and Christmas (also not in the Bible … in fact, the New Testament doesn’t specify any holy days or even the Sabbath because – Biblically – Christ is to be honored all the time).

Still, Lent is sort of the 800-pound gorilla in the resurrection room that Christian believers of the non-ecclesial persuasion have a hard time ignoring.

We start counting down “shopping days until Christmas” on November 1. Without an observation of Lent, all of a sudden it’s Holy Week and then Easter and then it’s over. Hence, Churches not observing Lent often plan a community prayer regimen or purposeful reading program during the 40-day season.

If you don’t “give up” something for Lent, you can never go wrong “giving more” during Lent, whether it is money, time helping others, or time worshipping God. Giving is love, and love is why Jesus died for us.

Here’s wishing you a well-spent Lent.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows Lent is 40 days but said “46 days” above: you don’t count the six Sundays.

Beside the Point

Spirituality Column No. 73
April 1, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Beside the Point
By Bob Walters

Since today is April 1, naturally I Googled “April Fool’s Day” to find out whether it has some traditional, hidden or even spurious religious etymology.

It doesn’t, really, unless you want to count the fact that in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII declared in force the new Gregorian Calendar which, throughout the Holy Roman Empire, standardized January 1 as the start of the new year instead of at the end of March. This replaced the old Julian Calendar and the big joke was to fool people into thinking April 1 was still the start of the New Year. A tradition was born.

Ha ha. But seriously, much of the Western world already had January 1 as New Year’s.

Still, maybe today is a good day to contemplate the foolish things we do in our faith; the things we do that make us take our focus off our relationship with Christ.

Non-foolishness is to understand one thing: it’s all about Him, Jesus Christ. When we focus on anything but Him, we very quickly start counting deeds, and when we count deeds, our human nature insists we keep score, and when we keep score … well, it gets foolish.

I don’t know how one can possibly keep score against God.

Christians in the same pews of the same churches will wrestle mightily over definitions of Bible words, over which version of the Bible is best, over how the Spirit comes and goes and resides, over which songs to sing and how to sing them, over communion practice, over worshipping with dance, over table decorations at the ladies’ retreat, over the inextricability of salvation (can you lose it?), who is called to be saved, who is going to Heaven, who is going to Hell, whether Genesis 1-2-3 can possibly be accurate …

The list is not necessarily foolish, but beside the point. The point is, fighting about this stuff is foolish.

Christ loves each of us in our uniqueness, so anything that prevents us from loving other believers in their uniqueness seems, well, foolish.

Shall we endeavor to discern the truth? Of course; lies are Satan’s weapon.

But keep it about Jesus, not about keeping score.

That’s the wise thing to do.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks judgment is one of the great gifts God gives any of us. We just need to not try to do God’s job for Him.





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