The following is a guest post from Dr. John Koessler, the chair of the pastoral studies department at Moody Bible Institute. He is also author to the a new book on preaching, Folly, Grace, and Power: The Mysterious Act of Preaching.
The other day as I began class, I noticed a black smudge on several of my students. It was Ash Wednesday. I knew some of the Bible and Theology professors at the school where I teach had organized a special service to mark the occasion. But it still startled me to see the sign of the cross emblazoned on their foreheads. Ash Wednesday is not a part of my worship tradition. I suspect it was new to most of my students as well.
More Christians from “low” church traditions like mine than ever before are observing Lent. Still the Easter season still does not enjoy the same degree of emphasis as Christmas does in most churches.The irony, of course, is that for the early church Easter was the most important day in the church calendar not Christmas. The observance of Easter pre-dated the church’s observance of Advent, perhaps even originating in the time of the apostles. The observance of Advent, the most important season in the liturgical calendar for the modern church, did not develop until several centuries later.
I remember the first time my wife and I observed Lent. We were serving at a small, rural church in California and my youth leaders and even the teenagers thought we were crazy. ”Isn’t that a Catholic thing?” they would ask. To many people, that is what Lent is – a Catholic thing. Whether you observe Lent or not, 40 days is a significant number in Scripture, and the 40 days leading up to Easter are a good a time as any to give up something in order to make time for something else.
