I’ve been thinking about Lent lately being that it started yesterday. It seems for all it’s faults, flaws, and many unbiblical aspects the Roman Catholic liturgical impulse has one advantage over the complete indifference to such matters of of liturgy in popular evangelicalism. The advantage is that while most professing believers can go through the year(with the exception of Christmas and Easter) without really pondering the life of Christ, without considering the obedience of Christ which now stands as our righteousness.
Yesterday many began their Lenten season committed to fast from many different things, in order to remember Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. It seems on the surface of it an exercise in missing the point. The point of the New Testament writers in recording the temptation of Christ is not to call us to make vows or to call us fast(fasting can be a good thing but it’s not the point of Christ’s temptation). The point is that Christ is the new Adam, that where our first father Adam was tempted and fell Christ was tempted and crushed the head of the serpent.
That we need liturgical calendars to remind us of this is saddening because this is the lifeblood the very impetus of the Christian life. If we only reflect upon these great truths once a season we rob ourselves of a chance to be encouraged and strengthened by the reminder of what Christ has done for us.
