THE SEASON OF LENT – TIME FOR A HEART CHECK UP
Did anyone run in a pancake race yesterday? Shrove Tuesday, now more commonly called ‘Pancake Day’—is well known for eating pancakes, but not so much for pancake races. But pancake races actually originate from Shrove Tuesday’s deeply religious roots.
Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving—an archaic term for a person confessing their sins and receiving absolution. Historically, shriving just before the season of Lent commenced is a spiritual practice that goes back for centuries. During the season of Lent, Christians traditionally fasted to deepen their focus and reliance on Christ, and show their devotion to him. Shrove Tuesday was an opportune time to eat all the foods that wouldn’t last the forty days of Lent without going off. Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as a means of using up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.
Pancake races are thought to have originated on Shrove Tuesday in 1445, when a woman who was busy cooking pancakes lost track of time. When the church bell rang to call the faithful to church for shriving, she rushed out her house and ran all the way to church, remarkably still holding her frying pan and wearing her apron, not wanting to miss her opportunity for confession and absolution. Whether or not that is fact or fable, the picture of somebody turning to God with such urgency is at the heart of the prophet Joel’s message tonight:
Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.
No matter what their situation, the people are to make it their priority to turn to the Lord. Why? The Prophet Joel warns the people of God’s coming anger:
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand—a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come.”
This mighty army spreading across the mountains whose size and power has never been seen and never will be again, is a plague of locusts. The swarm is so vast it will block out the sun itself and so this day will be a day of darkness and gloom, of clouds and blackness as the fields turn from green to brown as they are stripped.
This catastrophic situation mirrors the spiritual state of God’s own people. They were to not only to turn to God, but to return to him: “Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
The people’s hearts were far from God. They ran after the gods of their pagan neighbours, and clung to the idols of their own making. God was jealous, because he had rescued his people for them to belong to him alone! He had promised to be everywhere with them with his favour and help, and he’s the only one who can be. He was the One who had heard and forgiven and blessed them, he was the One who had guided and provided for them. He was the One who loved them! Nothing else could do this for them.
Yet the people didn’t want to listen to the true God who had created and rescued them. They said the right things, they performed the right religious ceremonies outwardly. But on the inside, their hearts were far from God.
And so the solemn assembly Joel calls for was to be different. The traditional cultural rituals of lament—the tearing of clothes and the scattering of dirt on the head—would no longer do unless it was heartfelt and sincere. God did not want another mechanical outward action without connection with their heart. As King David wrote in Psalm 51:
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, you, God, will not despise.
So through the prophet Joel, God called them to rend their hearts, not their garments.
The matter of where our heart is in relation to God has been an issue for the human race ever since the first people turned aside from God in the Garden of Eden. We see that in tonight’s Gospel reading. Jesus warned his disciples to not strive to impress others by their charity, prayer, and spiritual discipline, aiming for their approval and praise. He warned them not to be like ‘the hypocrites’.
A hypocrite was an actor in the ancient theatre who wore a mask to play a role. Jesus is saying that those who present with an outward appearance of righteousness but whose hearts are far from God are putting on an external mask and playing a role. The only reason they are performing their acts of piety is to be noticed by people and praised by them. They have made their spiritual life all about themselves and their need for attention and approval from others. They are not worshipping God but themselves. Their hearts are far from God, just like the people in the Prophet Joel’s day.
Jesus says that if people are seeking the attention and praise of others through their religious acts, they have already received their reward in full—they have got the praise from others they were looking for. That’s all they’ve got, because it’s all they were looking for. What a sobering thought—there is no further blessing in this life or the next.
Their giving should be for the purpose of honouring God and others, not seeking honour for oneself. Some make their giving all about what they get out of it for themselves. That’s not how God gives, who has first given us everything we have anyway, even though we haven’t deserved it.
In the same way, using prayer to gain recognition is a terrible misuse of God’s name, for he’s given his name to have personal conversation with him, not to turn prayer into a show. Through faith in Jesus, we are his sisters and brothers, meaning Jesus’ Father in Heaven is now our Father in Heaven also. Our Father knows what we need before we ask him, and hears and answers us for Jesus’ sake. God doesn’t need some sort of extra effort on our part in order for our prayers to be heard. Similarly, the spiritual discipline of fasting shouldn’t be for the purpose of impressing others, nor will fasting make us more pleasing to God.
So in this season of Lent what do we need to check our hearts for? What are the idols of our making? Do we seek and find God’s approval of us in Christ? Or is the approval, affirmation, and attention of others among the idols we treasure our hearts? Are we proud of our spiritual performance, and do we use it in an attempt to manipulate others and even God himself? Do we think that God is more pleased with us because of our religious performance, as if this makes him take more notice of us than he did before?
The prophet Joel also calls us to “Return to the Lord your God.” Ultimately, what God requires of us during Lent (and for that matter every day) is not to give up meat or coffee or chocolates or television, but our broken hearts heavy with guilt and anguish. To rend them—to tear them open as it were—and empty out all of that which would burden our conscience.
Lent’s real purpose is to return to God, bringing our sins with us. It is a particular season for examining where our heart is in life’s journey with God…but also where God’s heart is for us.
We see God’s heart for us in Jesus. God wasn’t trying to impress others when he sent his Son into the world. In fact Jesus did not win the popularity of the people, and was quite unimpressive, taking upon himself the sin and brokenness of the world. God wasn’t play acting when he warned of the seriousness of sin and dealt with it in Christ, for you. It was on the Cross that Jesus knew the calamity of God’s anger on sin, and darkness again overshadowed the land. It wasn’t Jesus’ garments but his own body that was torn, rend by a soldier’s spear.
That’s where God showed the abundance of divine mercy and compassion to you when he died in your place at Calvary. You don’t have to earn your reward from your Heavenly Father, because with the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ side he has earned the reward for you—a new life of forgiveness and righteousness under the Father’s favour and grace.
We haven’t deserved any of this, we who are dust, and to dust shall return. Yet the reason to return to the Lord is the same reason Joel spoke of: the abundance of God’s compassion: “Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
And so as we return to the Lord in faith, we see that it is the heart of God that is at the heart of Lent. God has given you Christ the treasure of heaven, and no amount of religious action by us makes him love you anymore than he already does.
As you leave worship tonight, you go out into the world with the mark of ashes on your forehead as a proclamation that ashes (or dust) we are, and to dust we shall return. But these ashes are applied in the mark of the Cross, as a sign that Christ the crucified has redeemed the world by his precious blood. And so you go out into the world with the fullness of God’s love for you; the fullness of his favour, forgiveness, and approval…not because of anything you have done or could do, but because Jesus has already done everything necessary to make you pleasing and righteous to your Father in Heaven. Amen.
