Lent is an ‘optional observance’ in much of Western Christianity which in my experience is mostly related to giving up a favorite food. However, Lent lasts for well over a month so maybe we should look at the importance and and the practice of this major observance.
First question though is - “Whats the point?” Lent is supposed to prepare Christians for Holy Week…that week leading up to Easter… but what are we actually trying to accomplish? The extremely summarized answer is that we’re trying to relate to the sacrifice of Jesus so the celebration of Easter is ‘that much better.’ I think our current use of Lent as a way to get kids off sugar for a month is wasting an opportunity for us to grow as Christians. Maybe if we focused less on giving up rather trite but addicting luxuries that we fully intend to resume Post-Easter, like caffeine or alcohol, and spend more time on making deeper examinations and changes to ourselves we could actually make a difference in the world.
So throughout Lent I will be examining in the blog aspects of Lent and how we can better accomplish what we probably should be doing all year.
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