Allen Dvorak
02/14/08
February 13th was Ash Wednesday and marked the beginning of Lent. People around the world celebrated Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday, with wild festivities. It is commonly understood that during Lent one is supposed to "give up" or abstain from some thing or practice.
Don’t feel bad if you are a little foggy about the details of these special days. You could take your Bible concordance and search from now until Easter and not find one occurrence of the words "Lent", "Ash Wednesday" or "Shrove Tuesday" in your Bible. Of course, the names of the weekdays wouldn’t be in the New Testament, but not even the special days represented by "Ash Wednesday" and "Shrove Tuesday" are described in the New Testament. Your Bible will not supply any details about how to celebrate Lent either.
How can these days be a part of my service to God if the Bible doesn’t even mention them? Good question. The fact is that men have taken some Biblical events and cultural practices and have invented holidays which religious people are expected to observe or be considered irreligious.
Lent is the forty-day period prior to Easter Sunday during which supposedly the church readies itself by prayer and fasting for the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Typically participants in Lent abstain from something in imitation of the Lord’s fasting for forty days in the wilderness just after His baptism by John. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is a day on which the ashes of palm leaves are placed on the foreheads of individuals as a sign of mourning and repentance for sin. Shrove Tuesday (also known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras) grew up around the practice of eating pancakes on that day since the Lenten fast usually included abstaining from eggs and fat. Mardi Gras has evolved into a licentious party lasting several days in which people carouse and drink in preparation for the penitent period of Lent!
The Lord requires repentance and prayer of His disciples. Although the New Testament does not require fasting as a regular religious ritual, there are occasions when it is appropriate (e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:5). We are commanded to follow in the footsteps of Jesus (1 Peter 2:21-24), although we are clearly not required to imitate every specific thing which Jesus did.
Lent, Ash Wednesday and a host of other religious holidays are the result of men loosely tying Biblical practices together (e.g., "Wearing ashes was a sign of mourning in Biblical times, so why not put ashes on our forehead on a particular day to signify mourning?") and associating them with some specific day of the year. The bottom line is that such holidays are the invention of men, perpetuated by tradition.
Is that significant? We are instructed to observe the authority of Jesus Christ in everything that we say and do (Colossians 3:17). Can we do that while following the traditions of men to worship God (Matthew 15:8-9)?