Christ @ the Center of Worship - Lent: Part of a Christ-centered Year

What is Lent? Lent is the middle part of the church calendar year. What is the church calendar? The church calendar was started by the world wide church in the 3rd century with hopes of honoring a Sabbath principle found in the Bible. The Bible reveals that Jewish followers of God were to mark time with God. This was done in several ways. The word Sabbath means seven, and one of the ways that the Israelites marked time with God was to rest for a 24 hour period of time on the 7th day of the week. The Israelites also practiced seasons of festivals and feasts that allowed them to mark time with God over longer periods of time. These feasts and festivals pointed the Israelites to the faithfulness of God in their lives and provided them with a way to celebrate their story with God in a repetitive way each year. The church calendar also seeks to do this in a similar way today. Just like the Biblical Jewish calendar was designed to lead the Jews through their story with God, the church calendar was designed to lead the church through our story with God. It seeks to lead the church through the gospel story in a year’s time. Lent is the second part of the story. Here is a brief outline of the story and calendar.

Celebrating the season of Lent is a good way to center your life around Christ. Especially if it is connected to celebrating Advent and Easter. This allows us to celebrate the gospel story in a practical way in a whole year. As we do this, we can connect with the gospel in a deeper way than just reading about it or thinking about God within the context of the American version of Christmas and Easter. The church calendar provides a way for followers of Christ to center time on Jesus. Doing this can put our thoughts and beliefs into practice so that we are more fully formed in Christ. This forms our habits and our desires with the Gospel, not just our mind.

It’s important to keep in mind that Lent is not meant to be a rigid formula that Christians have to follow in a certain way. In fact we are not commanded to practice a particular season or calendar at all. We are called to center our daily lives on Christ and celebrating Lent as part of the church calendar is one way that can be done. The important thing to remember is to try to center our days and years around traditions that celebrate the gospel story in a year’s time. If you don’t like the idea of celebrating Lent as a part of the Church calendar, you could always develop your own Christ-centered traditions.

If you have any questions about this post, please contact Jay Trull at 972.937.9590.