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Lent 2025: A Baptist Observes a Centuries Old Tradition

 My lovely Hispanic daughter-in-law tells me that the Spanish word for Lent is Cuaresma, playing on cuarenta, 40. I want to start this reflection with that thought. 

Forty reappears in the Bible frequently. Rain for forty days and forty nights. Moses in the wilderness forty years. The Israelites punished to wander in the desert for forty years. Jesus tempted for forty years. Elijah walked 40 days and nights to reach Mount Horeb. Goliath taunted the Israelites for 40 days. Jonah spent 40 days in Nineveh. 

The "forty" signifies testing and refining and purifying, punishment and trial. 
I have been thinking a lot about lament and repentance lately, having recently read 
Jeremiah's Lamentations. He had a lot to lament, with a destroyed city, a pillaged 
temple and the residents reduced to barbarism in some cases. 

Today those who are conscious of Lent see it as a time for easy fasting of something 
and the lead up to Easter, if we can keep that in mind. 

On our campus today, a professor from Louisiana brought in some King Cake, and the 
newly formed Catholic Student group is holding an Ash Wednesday mass at 4:00 today. 
Will I attend? It's tempting; I would say that is a first on our campus. (We have a 40% 
Hispanic population, although probably on half practice Catholicism--many living in this
area are Protestant, and our president is a devout Byzantine Catholic. I welcome any 
acknowledgement of sacred space here.)

Lent does not begin with, or continue in, a self-righteous "I'm not eating chocolate" 
mindset. It starts with acknowledgement of personal sin. That is uncomfortable for 
most.  I desire repentance because I recognize I am part of the problem in our 
society. Great pray-ers in the Bible pray "we," not just I. I refer to Daniel: 

Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. 6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.
8 “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. 10 We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. 11 Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. 12 And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.
13 “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly!
16 “O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us. 17 Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake [a]cause Your face to shine on [b]Your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies. 19 O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

Some of us today might find this overdone and emotionally overwrought. We do not feel that collective pull that Daniel did; we figure we are only responsible for our own mistakes and bad choices, not other people's. Well, everyone has an opinion. I can't confess another person's sin for them, but I can confess that I have a part in the whole--the apathy, the lack of concern, the self-addiction--that riddles our society. 

Lent is a journey to the cross, where we can't just say, "Jesus died for our forgiveness." We have to go 
deeper than that. He died "for my forgiveness," "because we daily choose our own desires rather than the good of others," "in order for God's righteousness to be real in my walk." 

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