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March 18th – March 23rd:
The liturgical season of Lent comprises of six consecutive weeks, which make up the Lenten season beginning numerically with the “First Sunday of Lent” and concluding with the “Sixth Sunday of Lent,” liturgically referred to as Passion Sunday. The Sixth Sunday of Lent is actually called “Passion” Sunday and not “Palm” Sunday, the more colloquial name. The rationale for “passion” is that all of the Scripture proclamations for Passion Sunday deal with the passion of Jesus, not handing out palm branches. The liturgical celebration concentrates on the salvation and redemptive work that Jesus accomplished through suffering, dying, and rising and accentuates the solemn Eucharistic acclamation, which stands at the center of the Christian faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Another fact about the Lenten season is the liturgical color of purple, which is color of the priest’s liturgical vestments, and altar linens, and decorations throughout church-communities. Purple also symbolizes pain, suffering, mourning, and of course, penance. Moreover, the color purple is used during the season of Lent because the Bible tells us that the Roman Procurator Pontus Pilate and his soldiers placed a purple robe on Jesus, just before his crucifixion: “They put on him a purple robe (Mark 15:16–20). And, the Fourth Gospel proclaims, “Then they said, hail, king of the Jews!” as they placed a purple robe on Jesus (John 19:1–5). Furthermore, purple is a penitential color, and although associated with royalty that is not its primary purpose.
March 18th – March 23rd:
The liturgical season of Lent comprises of six consecutive weeks, which make up the Lenten season beginning numerically with the “First Sunday of Lent” and concluding with the “Sixth Sunday of Lent,” liturgically referred to as Passion Sunday. The Sixth Sunday of Lent is actually called “Passion” Sunday and not “Palm” Sunday, the more colloquial name. The rationale for “passion” is that all of the Scripture proclamations for Passion Sunday deal with the passion of Jesus, not handing out palm branches. The liturgical celebration concentrates on the salvation and redemptive work that Jesus accomplished through suffering, dying, and rising and accentuates the solemn Eucharistic acclamation, which stands at the center of the Christian faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Another fact about the Lenten season is the liturgical color of purple, which is color of the priest’s liturgical vestments, and altar linens, and decorations throughout church-communities. Purple also symbolizes pain, suffering, mourning, and of course, penance. Moreover, the color purple is used during the season of Lent because the Bible tells us that the Roman Procurator Pontus Pilate and his soldiers placed a purple robe on Jesus, just before his crucifixion: “They put on him a purple robe (Mark 15:16–20). And, the Fourth Gospel proclaims, “Then they said, hail, king of the Jews!” as they placed a purple robe on Jesus (John 19:1–5). Furthermore, purple is a penitential color, and although associated with royalty that is not its primary purpose.
Lent is also an opportunity to contemplate what our Lord really did for us on the Cross, and it wasn’t pretty. But ultimately, the purpose of Lent does not stop at sadness and despair that it points us to the hope of the Resurrection and the day when every tear will be dried (Revelation 21:3). Although the nature of suffering is not one that offers itself to easy explanations or pat answers, the answers we seek seem to make the most sense in light of the Cross. There is nothing in the world, no religion, philosophy, or material comfort that offers such a powerful answer to life’s toughest questions as the two slabs of wood on which our Savior died. Many use this time to fast both from physical restoration and spiritual development and direction. Although, fasting is voluntarily going without food or any other regularly enjoyed thing that has been a good gift from God, for the sake of some spiritual purpose. This is the season to that the opportunity to render your total man unto the Lord. Because, if you can learn how to fervently learn the lost art of fasting, you can enjoy its fruit, it will not come with our ear to the ground of society, but from the instruction of the Holy Spirit.
The Word of God says, Jesus acknowledges that His followers will fast, and even promises it will happen. He doesn’t say “if,” but “when you fast” (Matthew 6:16). And he doesn’t say his followers “might fast”, but “they will” (Matthew 9:15). We fast in this life because we believe in the life to come. We don’t have to get it all here and now, because we have a promise that we will have it all in the coming age. We fast from what we can see and taste, because we have tasted and seen the goodness of the invisible and infinite God and are desperately hungry for more of him. Fasting is for the believer, for stretching our hearts to get fresh air beyond the pain and trouble around us. And it is for the battle against the sin and weakness inside us. We express our discontent with our sinful selves and our longing for more of Christ. When Jesus returns, fasting will be done. It’s a temporary measure, for this life and age, to enrich our joy in Jesus and prepare our hearts for the next, for seeing Him face to face. When he returns, he will not call a fast, but throw a feast; then all holy abstinence will have served its glorious purpose and be seen by all for the stunning gift it was. Usually, fasting is the abstaining of food for a certain period of time. But unlike the childlike joy associated with the season of Advent, with its eager anticipation of the precious baby Jesus, Lent is an intensely penitential time as we examine our sinful natures and return to the God we have, through our own rebelliousness, hurt time and again.