Lent

Book Review (Esau McCaulley)

I had decided to take Lent as a season a little more seriously this year. I won't bore you with details, but as a season for reflection upon sin, mortality, and the mortification of sin.

I hadn't planned to read anything particular, and I was on the fence about this book, but I appreciate everything McCaulley writes, so I took the plunge. And let me say, this book *sings*. McCaulley's background was the Black Baptist tradition, but here he is as an Anglican (ACNA) minister bringing out the riches of the Anglican liturgical traditions in their fullest and best. (It's part of a series called Fullness of Time, which examines various parts of the Church Year like this)

It begins with a reflection on Lent as a season, as a whole, in terms of repentance and renewal, before moving on to specific chapters. Instead of giving one of my typical reviews, I think I'm just going to share excerpts from each major chapter and section.

Ash Wednesday

On Ash Wednesday we remember that we will die, but we do not accept it as the inevitable reality of the human experience. Even in our acknowledgment of death there are hints of our rebellion against it. We sin and die because we are born in the aftermath of the rebellion of our first parents

God’s call to repentance is a call to give up those things that can bring only death. Ash Wednesday calls us to remember death, and by calling us to remember death it calls us to remember what causes death: sin and rebellion. By forcing us to remember our sin, it helps us realize that, at bottom, our sins are lies about the true source of joy.

Reflecting on the collects of Lent:

But if our hearts are fixed on the God who does not change, we can locate our joy where it will never be taken from us. God gives us the only joy that endures. It is joy that is not at the expense of others. It is joy that gives life to those around us instead of taking it away.

Good Friday

If humanity is defined by a life oriented to God, Jesus was the first truly human person to exist….

Jesus is the beginning of the resistance. In him God declares that sin and death will not always rule. Jesus’ fidelity to God in the face of evil is the wellspring of power that gives us the strength to live a fully human life. The cross of Christ is not an ending, a final act of evil in a world that knows only the destruction of good. The cross is evil meeting a more powerful foe: Emmanuel God with us, even unto death.

Holy Saturday

This is how the season of Lent concludes. Things are quiet. We are silent. We stand at the tomb wondering what God will do next. Whether we have kept our fasts or failed has no bearing on the final outcome. God either has the power to raise Christ from the dead, or he does not. We are Christians because we have concluded that he does. That means we can rest.