Replies

XS>Is Lent Christian ?

IMR>Absolutely. (And I passed three Baptist churches this past Sunday that were observing it).

XS>Is it scriptural?

IMR>Scriptural? To the extent Easter is. It remembers a Scriptural event but is not commanded in Scripture.

3 posted on 03/15/2004 10:56:08 AM MST by IMRight

Is Easter scriptural ?

Or was it created in 325 AD by Constantine at the council he called in Nicea?

Should it not be Passover we celebrate ?

Now that is scriptural and it is when Y'shua chose to sacrifice the Lamb for us.

and rise again on the feast of First Fruits as an offering to haShem.

chuck

Should it not be Passover we celebrate?

Sure. Celebrate the blood of a lamb spilled and ignore the Blood of the Lamb that was shed?

If you wish. I prefer both.

Do you celebrate the Passover as Scripture instructs?

Family Lenten Resolutions

Give concrete expression to Lenten resolutions by making a “Lenten Chain.” Pass out strips of white paper, approximately one by six inches in size, two to each person. Discuss what the family can do as a family to renew itself (see ideas below). Decide on five items for the first week and staple them into a Lenten chain. Each family member decides on a personal pledge of renewal and adds that to the chain, which is then draped around the centerpiece. Repeat this ritual each week, adding links to the chain so that by Good Friday the chain has grown to 40+ links. (Instead of the chain, some families make a large cross and tape pledges to it. Others fashion a Lenten calendar).

Here is a sampling of the kind of pledges for family and personal renewal that might appear on a Lenten chain:

* Examine and adjust eating patterns, e.g., giving up a certain food or drink one day a week, fasting.

* Dedicate time to service involvement during Lent, e.g., working at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, helping people in your neighborhood such as the elderly.

* Increase sacramental involvement, e.g., go to Mass as a family once during the week, participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation through individual confession or a parish Reconciliation Service.

* Participate as a family in the Stations of the Cross in the parish.

* Find time to read the Bible together as a family for fifteen minutes daily; read one spiritual book privately during Lent; meditate fifteen minutes a day.

* Set aside one evening each week just for family togetherness with no TV, only family activities.

>>Or was it created in 325 AD by Constantine at the council he called in Nicea?<<

The council of Nicea did not create any new practices or doctrines. What it did was demand adherence of groups claiming to be Christian to the doctrines that had been established by the apostles, which it formulated in the Nicene Creed. Although there is some dispute about what certain wordings of the creed meant, most Protestant churches uphold all tenets of the Creed. It had nothing *directly* to do with the papacy, and the various heresies which triggered it are certainly rejected by all Protestants. How it emerged as a bogey-man to certain Protestant lines of thought is a result of a long and bizarre post-reformation chain of events.

The observation of Lent, however, is not biblical, but rather a pious act instituted by the early Church after the age of the apostles. Fasting is biblical, and Lent is simply an opportunity to relate fasting to biblical events in the life of Christ (Good Friday, Easter, the forty days in the wilderness). I personally find the observation of Lent a help in focusing my attention on the joy of Easter.