What Is Lent?

You hear people talking about lent this time of the year in many churches but just what is lent all about?  What does it mean?

The word, "lent," comes from the Anglo-Saxon word, "lencten," which basically means the time of the year when the days grown longer.

Lent officially begins on Ash Wednesday and continues for 40 days until finishing up on Easter.  If you took a calculator and tried to figure out the 40 days you would come up with the wrong figure.  You have to subtract every Sunday because each Sunday is considered to be a "miniature Easter."  Thus, you calculate the 40 days minus Sundays.

Lent has its origins somewhere between the 6th and 8th century.  Originally, the idea was that a Christian, as a sign of repentance, would sprinkle ashes on his or her head.  In the Bible, ashes symbolize humility, mortality, fasting and remorse.  A person who sinned and felt remorse would sprinkle ashes on their head as a sign of repentance and sorrow.  

Ashes reminds us that we are mortal and eventually we will die.  At gravesite services, the pastor will usually say something in regard to dust to dust and ashes to ashes.  

Over time, instead of sprinkling ashes on a person's head, the ashes were instead rubbed into the forehead in the shape of a cross as a reminder of repentance and baptism.  Eventually, many churches gave up this practice.  The importance is what goes on in your heart.  

Why does it consist of 40 days?  That is because after Jesus was baptized, the Bible tells us that Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and to experience being tempted by the devil throughout this 40 day period.  

During the 40 days of Lent, we are think about our own troubles and temptations we go through and repent.  It is a time for us to receive God's forgiveness and to receive the power of the Holy Spirit  to give us strength and spiritual renewal to lead the Christian Life.  

Does Time Really Heal All Wounds?

Does time heal?  For some people it may indeed be true.  Some people swear by it.  

However, I believe that time heals nothing.  We learn to accept that which we cannot change.  

How long does it take to accept?  Six months, one year, three years?  

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was a Swiss Psychiatrist who wrote a very well known book in 1969, called "On Death and Dying." In the book she outlined five stages that people go through when they go through the process of death.  

Stage one:  Denial - Reality is hard to face and the first reaction is generally denial that this could actually be happening.  "There must be some mistake, doctors missed something."

Stage two:  Anger - Once denial can no longer be used as a defense, anger comes in, "why is this happening to me?  It's not fair.  How could God let this happen?"

Stage three:  Bargaining - There is still hope that somehow the individual can overcome this.  "Let me live God and I'll serve you forever."  

Stage four:  Depression - When the person eventually realizes that denial and bargaining is not going to work they begin to understand the certainty of death.  "I'm so sad, why do anything.  I'm going to die soon so what is the point?"

Stage five:  Acceptance - Individuals finally come to grips with their mortality.  "It's going to be okay.  I can't fight it so I might as well prepare for it.

Later Dr. Kubler Ross, through further research, expanded these five stages to include not just death, but also all traumas.  

The question that I would like for you, as you read this, to try and come to terms with is this:  "How long is it going to take between depression and acceptance?"  Six months, one year, three years, ten years?  

In order to heal anything we first have to understand it.  Healing and curing are two different things.  Curing is a medical term.  Healing is a spiritual term and it is an active process.  It is not a passive one.  As Americans, we do not always want to make the effort to get better, rather we just want to feel better now.  Feeling better is a passive process,via drugs, trying to block things out of our mind, refusing to talk about it, etc.  Getting better is an active process where we participate in the healing process.  If you are waiting for time to do its work, you are going to be in for a very long wait.  

When I was a little boy I would sometimes cut myself.  My mother would always give me a lecture first on why I should be more careful.  She then would take water and soap and clean the wound carefully.  She would put some type of salve on it and then apply a band aid.  

What would happen if she didn't clean the wound?  It might taken longer, could cause an infection, but it would eventually close and likely leave a scar. 

When we experience a wound to our heart, or our soul, it feels like being torn apart.  Sometimes it even feels like we are bleeding inside.  Eventually, the bleeding will stop and the wound closes.  However, what is it we have closed up?  Have we truly healed the wound or have we simply closed up anger, hurt, regret, and remorse inside?  If we have not healed the wound, some people will experience "weeping wounds" which doctors and nurses describe as a wound that doesn't heal because of some type of noxious fluids that fester and ooze out.  How many weeping wounds can a person suffer before their whole system is contaminated.  

The Greek word for "trauma" is wound.  A wound that is not healed will fester.  Almost all philosophers believe we will die without ever healing our wounds.  

The Bee Gees believed that you cannot mend a broken heart.  You can't stop the rain from falling and you can't stop the sun from shining.  Dolly Parton sings Silver threads and golden needles can't mend a broken heart.  They are all probably right.  We may not be able to mend a broken heart but God can.  

The 23rd Psalm provides us with some answers.  Look at the first three verses: 

"The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.  He restores my soul."

How does God restore our soul?  He makes us lie down in green pastures.  Green pastures refers to the bread of life which is Jesus Christ.  He leads us beside the still waters.  Still waters is the opposite of troubled waters.  He restores our soul.

God knows we go through troubled times and become anxious and depressed but God also wants us to be restored to a life of joy.  He wants us to slow down and know that He is with us.  He wants us to allow Jesus to touch and heal every hurt and wound that we may have closed up rather than allowed to heal.  

In ancient times, healing meant to be whole, which meant that if a person became sick they would not be whole anymore.  Something has happened that has broken our wholeness and disease has come into our body.  Something will have to be done, actively not passively, as time has nothing to do with healing.  

In pain management, you are taught to relax your muscles or wherever the pain is.  If you tighten up, the pain will obviously get worse the more you resist it.  Allow the pain to be present.  When you breathe deeply and become more aware of the pain, there is room for it to move and flow through you more easily.  Pain is there to tell us something is wrong whether it is physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual.  To become whole, means being open to our pain and our losses.  We include those things that would have been forever lost and not recognized as needing to be healed if we had not taken the time to heal.  One of my favorite singers is Carly Simon who touches on this with her wonderful song, "There's More Room In A Broken Heart."  

Time does not heal.  However, healing does take some time.  Let God help you through the process.  That's one of the things He does best.