From the Pastor

February 2008

Lent.  A length (from where the word ‘lent’ comes) of time – forty days, to be exact, not counting Sundays.  Forty days and nights the rains fell during the time of Noah.  Forty years the Israelites travelled in the wilderness.  Forty days the prophet Elijah ran to Mount Horeb after killing the prophets of Baal.  Forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness following his baptism.

What are you doing with your forty days this year?

Probably not much that’s different from any other forty day period of time throughout the year, if you’re like most people.  Maybe you’ve given up something – chocolate, a television show, or some other bad habit.  Maybe you’ve taken up a discipline (from were we get our word ‘disciple’) like yoga or daily bible reading.  Maybe you’ve picked up one of the Lenten Calendars at church and are following its rhythm of reading, prayer and service.

Can you keep it going for forty whole days?  That’s a long time.  At least, that’s what forty represents in the scriptures – a long time.  A long number of years.  A long number of days.    So many is ‘forty’ in scripture that the Torah teaches that no criminal should be flogged with as many as forty lashes as that would “degrade” the offender in the eyes of the community (Deuteronomy 25:3).  Thus, the usual number of lashes became thirty-nine.

Perhaps forty doesn’t seem like so much to you.  Forty days – just over a month – can go by like that if you’re busy.  And who isn’t?  Between the demands of work or school, family, friends, and a little down time with your spouse or just a little time alone, and, of course, the demands of your church community, forty days and nights can whip by before you even know it.  If you’re like me, having spent at least forty years on the planet, forty can seem like nothing – I’m still young, aren’t you?

Without distractions like television, the internet, big-screen movies or movie rentals, and before our life expectancies rose so very high, I can imagine how forty must have seemed like a long time – how any spiritual exercise that lasted forty whole days must have seemed like an eternity.

But, I’m not sure that ‘forty’ is so much the point of Lent anymore.  In our day, it’s probably not so much about the length of time as it is about dedicating a piece of time, any time, to journeying with Jesus as he approaches the cross of Good Friday and the glorious promise of New Life on Easter Sunday.  And, making that time, whatever length it is, good quality time.  A good intentional discipline.  A solid time spent with scripture, or in prayer, or on a walk.

The cultural norms and assumptions about life may not hold true for us in the way they may have for the Israelites or the early Christians; perhaps forty is the new sixty, or maybe twenty, I don’t know.  But what does hold true is that our relationship with God in Christ, like any relationship, requires dedicated and intentional time to keep it whole.

May yours be a holy length of time.

Peace,
Pastor Brian