What Are You Giving Up For Lent? Do You Know Why?
For some, it’s chocolate or dessert. For others, it might be something a little tougher, like alcohol, cussing or smoking. (If you spent some time celebrating Mardi Gras yesterday, you might be feeling like giving up some of that right now.)
Today is Ash Wednesday for millions of Christians, which marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 days (not counting 6 Sundays) preceding Easter.
The earliest possible Ash Wednesday in a year is February 4 and the latest is March 10. Many times, the ashes used for the ceremony come from the burned ashes of the palm fronds from the prior year’s Palm Sunday services.
But why do Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and others decide to give up something?
It’s to repent for our sins and to purify and renew ourselves. The earliest known reference to this practice was somewhere around the 8th century AD from the writings of the abbot Aelfric, according to the website for Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lexington, Kentucky. His text for The Lives of the Saints mentions sprinkling our heads with ashes and wearing sackcloth, which was itchy, uncomfortable fabric. The practice of sprinkling oneself with ashes was to show mourning and inner repentance in early times. Wearing sackcloth was also a way of showing our suffering. The anointing with oil and ashes came later.
Biblical references to the ashes and sackcloth appear in Job 42:6, 2 Samuel 13:19, Esther 4:1,3, Isaiah 61:3, Jeremiah 6:26, Ezekiel 27:30, and Daniel 9:3 in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus alludes to the practice in Matthew 11:21, according to the Our Redeemer site. The site also points out that the specific practices of Ash Wednesday and Lent are never specifically mentioned in the Bible.
The 40 days is an allusion to Jesus’ time in the desert when he was fasting and praying and being tempted by the devil as written about in the Gospels. Moses also repented and fasted for 40 days after the people created the golden calf to worship.
So, now, we show our outer repentance to others with the ash smudge and our inner repentance by giving up something that tempts us or is a luxury, for 40 days. Good luck!