Well, the big day has finally arrived.  No, I'm not talking about National Signing Day for college football - you rabid Tiger fans are going to have to wait another 24 hours before you know for sure who Tommy Bowden has inked for the coming season.  And no, CNN and Fox News junkies, I'm not talking about Super Tuesday and the 24 states that are holding their primaries today.  No, the BIG day that I am referring to is Fat Tuesday, mardi gras in the French, the day before the 40-day season of spiritual preparation before the greatest of days for Christians, Easter Sunday.

 

Later today, many Christians around the world will begin preparing for the Lenten season at a Shrove Tuesday supper where pancakes, crepes or other pastries will be the main dish.  Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the past tense of the English "shrive" which means to  receive absolution of one's sins by confession and doing penance.  Historically, priests would shrove their flocks prior to Ash Wednesday and the start of the Lenten Season.  The celebration of Mardi Gras grew out of the need to empty the cupboards before the fasting season of Lent began.

 

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, where ashes from the burned palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday are imposed on the foreheads of Christians accompanied by the following words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  Ash Wednesday is a time when we remember our mortality, our sinfulness and, ultimately, our need for God.

 

Throughout the next Forty Days (excluding Sundays, which are always feast days), Christians typcially focus on three spiritual disciplines designed to draw them closer to the will of God: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  The Forty Days of Lent are viewed as a sufficient or complete length of time of spiritual preparation, mirroring Jesus' time of preparation in the desert before he began his three years of ministry.  Through disciplined prayer, fasting and almsgiving, Christians seek to become more like Christ, and more grateful for what God has done for them through the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

 

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, the week before Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday.  Palm Sunday marks the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowds while palm branches were waved or spread on the road for the triumphal entry.  Several days later Christians gather for Maundy Thursday, with "maundy" coming from the Latin for "mandate" in John's Gospel.  In the upper room the night before Jesus died, he says to his disciples, "I give you a new commandment (mandate), that you should love another, just as I have loved you."  Maundy Thursday services are usually times when Christians celebrate Holy Communion, a rite instituted by Jesus on the night before he died.  Many communites of faith also perform footwashing on this night, remembering that Jesus washed his disciples' feet as they entered for the celebration of the Passover meal for the last time together.

 

The day that Jesus was crucified, Good Friday, is more aptly called "Mourning Friday" in Germany.  Some believe that the word "Good" at one time was "God's", while others understand "Good" to mean "Holy."  Remembering the events of Good Friday through a reenactment of the Stations of the Cross is popular in certain traditions.  The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is known by many different names around the world.  In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the day is often referred to as Holy or Great Saturday or the Great Sabbath, as a reminder of Jesus resting in the tomb.  The day is also known as Black Saturday (Philippines), White Saturday (Czech Republic) or Silent Saturday (Netherlands).  As noted in the Apostles' Creed, many believe that Jesus descended into hell on this day to share the Good News with all who had died before him (I Peter 3:18-20, 4:6).

 

Of course, Lent ends with the celebration of Easter, the day in which the women discovered that the tomb has been rolled away and that God had raised Jesus, the one who was faithful until the end, from the dead.  Early on, Christians began to gather on Sundays in recognition of this great event and in ancitipation of Christ's return.  Before long, Sunday, the "Lord's" day, replaced Saturday as the day for worship, the day for Sabbath.

 

This Lent, I hope that you will seek to use the next 40 days as a time to grow closer to God.  As with all things, we can receive Lent as a great gift from God and the Church and treat it as such, or we can take what was intended for good and turn into something that is another work or law to be performed.  To help you develop a Lenten discipline that is more developed and pertinent to your spiritual life than simply giving up soft drinks or chocolate, I want to share some questions for mediation and reflection that I came across years ago in a book by Laurence Hull Stookey.  Stookey, in Calendar: Christ's Time for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), asks the following questions all centered around the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving:

I hope that this Big, Super, Fat Tuesday will fulfill all your expectations...and I pray, even more, that next 40 days might be a time in which God touches you once again or, if you're like me, a time when God challenges you to say "no" to the false idols and gospels of our day and "yes" to one Gospel that leads to life.

Bon mercredi des cendres,
lane

PS - There will be a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at Clemson UMC tonight beginning at 5 pm.  Tomorrow, there will be an ecumenical Ash Wedneday Service tomorrow on campus at 12:20 pm in McKissick and one tomorrow evening at Clemson UMC at 6:30 pm.

Rev. C. Lane Glaze
Director - Clemson Wesley Foundation
Campus Minister - Clemson UMC
PO Box 1703 Clemson SC 29633
864-207-9135 (c) or 864-654-5547 (o)
www.clemsonwesley.com

Feel free to forward this email to a friend. The Clemson Wesley Weekly Devotional is a ministry of the Clemson Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Church’s ministry to students on the campus of Clemson University. The purpose of this email is to look at issues relevant to the life of Clemson students through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you would like your name added to this list, email Rev. Lane Glaze at glaze@clemson.edu.