You don't have to know much about me at all to know that I am not a Catholic. I am an ordained Southern Baptist Minster, but for the last few years I have been in the practice of observing Lent. For the benefit of my uninformed protestant readers, Lent is a 40 day fast leading up to ressurrection day. (Remember my ban on the word Easter?) Actually according to this wikipedia article it is 46 days. Why is it 40 days? Because it recalls the 40 days of fasting that Jesus endured in the desert prior to his temptation.

As a protestant, I observe Lent because, for the most part, western Christians have abandoned the fast all together. I fast periodically from food for a day, but not with regularity, and Lent is the only prolonged fast I participate in. I do not believe that it earns me more of God's favor, or that more grace comes to me as I participate in the fast. But I do believe that it is worth the effort.

Many people have written well on the spiritual discipline of fasting, (I particularly reccommend Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life and The Spirit of the Disciplines) so I won't waste your time here. I will say however, that I use the time and pain that occurs in in a fast to remind me to pray and to meditate on God. For example, if I am fasting for revival I use the hunger pains as a reminder to ask God to bring revival to my life and to my church.

In the case of a prolonged fast like Lent, I use the desire to participate in the forbidden activity as a reminder that suffering is a part of the Christian life. This is made more important because of the fact that I live in the US, where we have true religious freedom.

I have narrowed down my Lenten choices to 3.

Give up Facebook - Mostly because of Scrabble, and lately the geography challenge, I have a mild addiction to Facebook. This would not be easy for me
Give up sugar - I will still allow myself a Mello Yello each day, but otherwise, no sugar. This means no pancakes at the Baptist Men's breakfast, no fruity Pebbles, no ice cream, etc. This also would not be easy for me
Commit to ride my exercise bike every day - This one is pretty self explanatory. My only real problem with this option is that it is not a fast. I certainly will not be able to read my Bible as I ride, and it therefore unlikely to bring me closer to God and His will for me.

Which do you think I should do?

[polldaddy poll=1396425]

This year Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) is February 25th. I'm putting up this poll for your input before fat Tuesday so I can gorge on sugar or Facebook or non exercise tomorrow.

This post by John McLamb plus a phone call from my friend, Brent, got me thinking about Easter and the subdued celebration we give it. Think of the incarnation. (a.k.a. Christmas) For some reason this holiday has become a worldwide phenomenon. I am not wanting anything like this for Easter, [almost everything about Christmas has gotten out of hand] but it would be great if Easter involved a little more celebration. As it is, it as become only an excuse for little girls to get new dresses. Remember that Christmas wouldn’t matter if there was no Easter.

Let’s read 1 Cor 15

¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (ESV)

The fact is, if there is no Easter than our religion is hopeless. We really should have a greater celebration. Something better than just canceling pm worship, or maybe hunting eggs.

I think part of the problem is that it is a celebration of something we often forget to celebrate. We have a tendency to See Jesus as only the “Lamb upon the cross.” (Remember The Passion of the Christ, 127.5 minutes of beatings and blood, 30 seconds of the resurrection but people think it is the greatest film ever made.) Even on Easter day we have a tendency to speak about Christ’s death more than His resurrection. Don’t get me wrong His death is very important. But without the resurrection it would be wasteful.

So next year, at least on Resurrection day, let’s truly celebrate the resurrection:

I would like to start a movement to reclaim the name of Easter. Have it be called Resurrection day. I began to think about this on Thursday after leaving the following comment on Scott & Briana’s blog.

Much like the Chocolate & peanut butter bunnies, we have mixed up our paganism with our Christianity.

It starts with the name Easter, an englishification of a pagan word. From Wikipedia - The name refers to the Eostur-monath, a month of the Germanic Year which may have been named for the goddess Eastre in Germanic paganism. -

We should call it resurrection Sunday, or something similar to that.

As for the bunny laying eggs. If you are a pagan and worship fertility, (as all pagan religions do) what is a better symbol for fertility than a bunny? How about an egg? If you mix the two, you get an Easter bunny.

Just don't teach your kids to worship fertility in the springtime when everything is coming to life after the long winter and you will be ok even if you eat Easter eggs, and get a visit from the bunny. :-)

But I'll leave that up to someone with more influence.

Why I Observe Lent

Easter, the New Christmas