Ash Wednesday begins forty days of intentional discipleship reflection on the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. These forty days, known in the churches of the west (Protestant, Roman Catholic) as “Lent” and in the churches of the east (Orthodox) as “Great Lent” continue through Holy Week and conclude on Holy Saturday before Easter Sunday.

These forty days reflect the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness combating and overcoming the temptations of Satan: temptations that challenged Jesus’ identity as the Son of God (Matthew 3:3) and were manifested through power, arrogance, and trust in the material things of this world.  These were not the final temptations of Jesus' life (Luke 4:13), but the forty day encounter provided the needed spiritual preparation for our Lord’s ministry of the Kingdom of God.

The word “Lent” is a Teutonic word that originally meant the spring season. The practice of spiritual preparation during this season, often accompanied by intense fasting, dates back to the early centuries of the Christian faith when new converts prepared for their baptism, usually on Eastern Sunday.  By the fourth and fifth centuries the practice had evolved to something similar to what we know today.

I grew up in the 1950s and 60s, a time when Christianity was more culturally pronounced in American life. So Lent was known to me though not particularly practiced in the Pentecostal Holiness Church.  But two things occurred in the early 1970s that made this season more important to me.

First, I attended a Presbyterian seminary that opened more doors of understanding about many of the practices of the larger Christian community.

Second, through the ministry of the late Rev. Carl Campbell, then pastor of the Ray of Hope IPHC in Richmond, VA, I learned that these practices were not antithetical to our IPHC heritage, especially with our strong roots through John Wesley into the Anglican tradition. In those days, Ray of Hope had a large number of Spirit-baptized attendees from liturgical churches who longed for the vibrancy and spiritual immediacy of Pentecostalism. Pastor Campbell wisely understood that they also needed connections to their roots and often used the church calendar, including the colors of the church year, in the Sunday services. It had a profound impact on me.

This year for Lent I am focusing my devotional Biblical reading on the three passion prophecies of the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Mark 8:31-33; 9:30-32; 10:32-34) and the three passages in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks of Himself as being “lifted up,” an obvious metaphor of His death on the Cross (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32).

In this season I often think of the closing lines from Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest for the Historical Jesus:

He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words, "Follow thou me!", and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is.

 - Dr. Doug Beacham