O Dearest Jesus, What Law Have You Broken CW21:432

Guitar Setting for HERZLIEBSTER JESU 

 

 

O Sacred Head Now Wounded, Guitar Setting CW2021 428

 A Setting for Herzlich tut mich Verlangen (Isorhythmic) 

Christian Worship 2021 hymn 428.

A Lenten Reminder of Cross Bearing

There is a useful tradition about giving something up for Lent. While such an act does nothing for our salvation or holiness before God, it does provide us with the opportunity to learn that there are ways we can discipline our own bodies.

But we should be careful not to elevate such self-deprivation to the level of suffering for Christ.

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
[Matthew 16:24-26 NKJV]

A main goal of Lent is to lead us through the Active Obedience of Christ on our behalf to view the Passive Obedience of Christ in our place that our faith may rest on Christ alone, and Christ crucified. His is the cross that saves.

The following is a list, a reminder, both of what suffering for Christ can be, and to keep our brothers and sisters in our prayers.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. " Romans 8:18

This is a partial list that starts in January.

• January 2, 2019, "Authorities Order Closure of another Church Building in Algeria, Local officials have been fighting its presence since 2016."
• January 7, 2019 "Christian Family, Church Devastated by Killing of Church Elder in Nigeria, Police declined to take action against Muslim Fulani herdsmen.
• January 9, 2019 "Faith Costs Christian in Algeria His Family, Livelihood, Wife pressured to file charges against him of ‘undermining Islam.’"
• January 11, 2019 "Christian Mother, Pastor Fear for their Lives after Attacks in Eastern Uganda, Radical Muslims in two areas issue threats."
• January 15, 2019 "Muslim Throng Converges on Worship Site of Coptic Church in Egypt,Priests evicted, building shuttered."
• January 17, 2019 "Hindu Version of Feng Shui Leads to Demolition of Church Building in Southern India, Bibles set ablaze after extremists stop Christians’ van."
• January 21, 2019 "Facing Torture, Death in Sudan, Convert Flees to Egypt – and More Death Threats, Apartment broken into, passport stolen."
• January 23, 2019 "Christian Acquitted of Blasphemy Charge after Two Others Sentenced to Death in Pakistan, Brothers accused of insulting Muhammad on website."
• January 25, 2019, "Muslim Police Officers, Others Beat and Arrest Christian in Kenya, Young man held in police jail in Industrial Area of Nairobi."
• January 27, 2019 "20 killed, dozens wounded in Philippines church bombings" by Madeline Holcombe CNN 
• January 29, 2019 "Grieving Christians Baffled by Muslim Fulani Herdsmen Aggression in Nigeria, 70-year-old is killed, 16-year-old wounded."
• January 31, 2019 "Kidnapping, Torture in Egypt of Christian Woman from Sudan Highlights Convert Pressure, Muslim extremists also threaten to kill husband, daughter." 

• February 1, 2019 "Christian Jailed in Chiapas, Mexico Told to Leave Area in Exchange for Freedom, Temporarily released due to illness, his wife serves time in his place."

• February 5, 2019 "Hindu Extremists Pressure Convert to File False Charge against Pastor in India, Sources Say, Across the border in Nepal, spike in persecution continues."
• February 7, 2019 "Legal Struggle of Doctor Reflects Wider Harassment of Christians in India, Hindu extremist government reminded that practicing one’s faith is not unlawful."
• February 11, 2019 "Christian Mother from Somalia Beaten, Raped in Kenya, Somali Muslims attack convert from Islam."
• February 18, 2019 "Christian in Sri Lanka Arrested after Reporting Threat on His Life, Watchdog Group Reports, False assault allegation filed against him, according to organization."
• February 19, 2019 "Christian Mother Facing False Accusation in India Is Transferred Far from Home, Sources Say, Mob rule increasingly common in world’s largest democracy."
• February 25, 2019 "Killing of Christians Continues in Run-up to National Elections in Nigeria, Muslim Fulani herdsmen kill 12 at church wedding reception. "
• February 26, 2019 "Two Christians Killed in Separate States in India, Tribal animists are said to enlist Maoist rebels to kill converts."
• February 28, 2019 "At Least 40 Christians Killed in Two Attacks in Kaduna State, Nigeria, School for missionary children shut."

• March 1, 2019 "Muslim Mobs Attack 10 Church Buildings in Ethiopia,  Unprecedented religious destruction in town sparked by false rumor."
• March 2, 2019, "At Least 32 Christians killed as mob burns homes, church in Nigeria." 
• March 4, 2019 "Report Shows 57 Percent Jump in Aggression against Christians in India, Hate and targeted violence up first two months of year."
• March 6, 2019 "Muslim Mobs Attack 10 Church Buildings in Ethiopia," 
• March 7, 2019 "Churches Deprived of Their Worship Buildings in Tamil Nadu, India, Opposition where previously none existed."
• March 11, 2019 "Pastor of Underground Church in Kenya Beaten Unconscious, Relocated family seeks safe home."
• March 15, 2019 "120 people killed, 140 homes destroyed by Nigeria Fulani since February," Samuel Smith, CP Reporter. The violence is being committed against the Christian population.
• March 15, 2019"Couple Beaten, Congregation Member Missing in Persecution of Church in China"
• March 15, 2019 "Muslim student charged with terrorism for attempting to burn down Christian School in St. Paul, MN ."

" But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;  having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.  For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil." 1 Peter 3:14-17

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Matthew 5:10-12

Ash Wednesday, Ashes, and Lent

Where did Ash Wednesday and Lent come from? Are they relics of paganism? No. They are not. The actual history is much more interesting and beneficial.

Early Practice of Lent

The ancient Church chose to keep a fast during the forty days before Passover/Easter to focus on repentance and the gift of the Resurrection at Easter. St. Athanasius, who led at the Council of Nicea to defeat Arianism—a denial of Christ being truly God and man in one person—was a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote annual Festival letters to the Church as they prepared to celebrate Easter. In the year 331 he wrote in order to encourage his congregations in Egypt to keep the Lenten fast for 40 days. Athanasius directs the readers to many Scriptural examples and exhortations to moderation, self-control, and fasting for repentance, Athanasius gives several Bible examples of the 40 day fast, especially of Christ's 40 day fast, after which Athanasius wrote:

“The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth (we call Ash Wednesday); and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi (Palm Sunday), in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings, and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with precious blood, and to escape the destroyer (Exod. xii. 7, 23.). Let us rest then, on the fifteenth of the month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday Eve), for on the evening of that Saturday we hear the angels’ message, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen (Luke xxiv. 5).’ Immediately afterwards that great Sunday receives us, I mean on the sixteenth of the same month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday morning), on which our Lord having risen, gave us peace towards our neighbours.

We learn from this that even at the time the Nicene Creed was written, at the time Constantine the Great ruled, the Western and Eastern Churches practiced a voluntary fast for 40 days before Easter.

That this was practiced in Rome and elsewhere is seen in St. Athanasius' letter from the year 340 A.D. when he returns from a meeting of pastors/bishops from all around the world, and he encourages his own congregations to continue in the same practice of the 40 day Lenten fast as does “the rest of the whole world.”

In order to count the 40 days of Lent the Sundays of that season are not counted as part of the fast. Rather the Sundays are each a minor feast day. If you add the six feast Sundays to the 40 fast days you get 46 days. That means that the first day of the Fast of Lent is a Wednesday, just as Athanasius explained.

The 40 days was not counted the same way in all areas. About the year AD 380 a woman named Egeria (also called Etheria or Aetheria) documented her trip to Jerusalem and the liturgical practices in the area. Regarding Lent she says this:

“And when the Paschal days come they are observed thus : Just as with us forty days are kept before Easter, so here eight weeks are kept before Easter. And eight weeks are kept because there is no fasting on the Lord's Days, nor on the Sabbaths, except on the one Sabbath on which the Vigil of Easter falls, in which case the fast is obligatory. With the exception then of that one day, there is never fasting on any Sabbath here throughout the year. Thus, deducting the eight Lord's Days and the seven Sabbaths (for on the one Sabbath, as I said above, the fast is obligatory) from the eight weeks, there remain forty-one fast days, which they call here Eortae, that is Quadragesimae.” (Chapter 27 Egeria's Description of the Liturgical Year in Jerusalem: Translation, Based on the translation reproduced in Louis Duchesme's Christian Worship (London, 1923) http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/durham/egetra.html#ch27 )

Though the 40 day Lenten Fast was scheduled differently in Jerusalem, it was still the 40 day Lenten Fast.

Ashes and Ash Wednesday

The practice of believers using ashes to represent sorrow and repentance is well testified in the Bible. In the ancient world it was the natural formal response of those who are sorry for their sins:

For example:

• Mordecai's repentance and the repentance of the Jews in exile; Esther 4:1,3 When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
• Job's repentance: Job 2:8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
• See also Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:6; and Christ's harsh words to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Luke 10:13.

The Christian Liturgical use of ashes is documented by Tertullian(c. 160 – c. 225). In his On Repentance Ch. 11 Tertullian complains about those who claim repentance but do not want to demean themselves with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Eusebius (c. 260- c. 340) records a particular liturgical use of ashes as a sign of public repentance by an individual (Church History Bk5, Ch 28, par. 12).

Documentation on Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday was not a uniform practice in the church, but by the late 7th and early 8th century we have strong evidence of uniformity of practice in Western Europe.

Bede (672-735) dates sermons based on Ash Wednesday; for example: Homily 37 “in die Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:349); Homily 38 “in fiera quinta post Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:350), etc. https://books.google.com/books?id=rvQQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT62#v=onepage&q&f=false )

8th Century Gelasian Sacramentary begins Lent (Quadragesima) on Wednesday (Minge PL 74:1065 https://archive.org/stream/patrologiaecurs21goog#page/n535/mode/2up )

Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955 – c. 1010), an English abbot in a sermon on Ash Wednesday (Aelfric’s Lives of the Saints, ed. p. 236 https://archive.org/stream/aelfricslivesof01aelf#page/262/mode/2up/search/ashes )

“On the Wednesday, throughout the whole world, the priests bless, even as it is appointed, clean ashes in church, and afterward lay them upon men's heads, that they may have in mind that they came from earth, and shall again return to dust, even as the Almighty God spake to Adam, after he had sinned against God's command….
...
“Now let us do this little in the beginning of our Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads,

Sarum Use of the 11th Century has special service for Ash Wednesday including the imposition of ashes. (in this English translation it begins on p. 52 https://books.google.com/books?vid=08I4RhaJDeU0z2Dt&id=cyUBAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PR7&lpg=RA1-PR7&dq=%22Sarum+Missal#v=onepage&q=ashes&f=false )

According to Nicolaus Nilles it was at the Council of Benevento in AD 1090 that Pope Urban II standardised the use ashes on Ash Wednesday making it uniformly the liturgical head, or beginning of the Lenten Fast. (Nilles, 1897 Kalendarium Manuale vol II, p. 94. )

The Suppression of Ash Wednesday

I don’t have the library resources available to examine the Lutheran Church Orders of the 15th and 16th centuries. What I have gathered is from the development of liturgical practice in English.

The origins of the Book of Common Prayer in England were greatly affected by Luther through the chief author, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. In turn, during the shift from the German language to English in America, both before World War I and later, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was a significant resource for the framers of the liturgical practice of English speaking Lutherans from the beginning of the 20th century in America.

The Parliament and King Edward VI enacted An Act for Uniformity of Service and Administration of the Sacraments throughout the Realm in 1549. This law mandated the use of the Book of Common Prayer for every citizen of the realm. It also made using other forms or services an act punishable by civil law. Cranmer was not Lutheran, he was Calvinist. By 1552 he had readied a second edition of the Book of Common Prayer which eliminated many liturgical practices and specifically condemned Lutheran teaching on the Sacrament of the Altar.

Cranmer’s non-Lutheran but Calvinist Reformed theology embraced what they called the Regulative Principle of Worship: which means that they asserted that anything not explicitly commanded by God for worship is sin. In Cranmer’s view he needed to improve the Book of Common Prayer according to this principle. His first edition was a concession to the weak, but he aimed (in his way of thinking) to eliminate any liturgical teaching or practice that was not explicitly commanded in Scripture.

So the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer (1549) has the propers for “The first day of Lent, commonly called Ashwednesday”
( https://archive.org/stream/firstbookofcommo00waltuoft#page/n137/mode/2up )

The second edition of 1552 has only
“The first day of Lent” (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/Readings_Lent_1549.htm)

A similar change was made elsewhere. The 1549 edition contained a whole section dedicated to Ash Wednesday:

“ xii. A declaracion of scripture, with certein prayers to bee use the firste daye of Lent, commonlye called Ashwednesdaie.”

This was retitled for the 1552 edition to remove any reference to Ash Wednesday:

“Xx. A Comminacion against sinners, with certain praiers to be used divers tymes in the yere.”

With the publication of this volume a renewed Act of Uniformity in 1552 required the use of this new version with it’s elimination of Ash Wednesday, the use of ashes, and several other liturgical practices previously legally accepted. Along with this the new edition added at the end of the Service of Communion a paragraph that became called the “Black Rubric” which warned against kneeling and condemned the Scriptural teaching of the Lord’s Supper:

Although no ordre can be so perfectlye devised, but it may be of some, eyther for theyr ignoraunce and infermitie, or els of malice and obstinacie, misconstrued, depraved, and interpreted in a wrong part: And yet because brotherly charitie willeth, that so much as conveniently may be, offences shoulde be taken awaye: therefore we willing to doe the same. Whereas it is ordeyned in the booke of common prayer, in the administracion of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants knelyng shoulde receyve the holye Communion. whiche thynge beyng well mente, for a sygnificacion of the humble and gratefull acknowledgyng of the benefites of Chryst, geven unto the woorthye receyver, and to avoyde the prophanacion and dysordre, which about the holy Communion myght els ensue: Leste yet the same kneelyng myght be thought or taken otherwyse, we dooe declare that it is not ment thereby, that any adoracion is doone, or oughte to bee doone, eyther unto the Sacramentall bread or wyne there bodily receyved, or unto anye reall and essencial presence there beeyng of Christ's naturall fleshe and bloude. For as concernynge the Sacramentall bread and wyne, they remayne styll in theyr verye naturall substaunces, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatrye to be abhorred of all faythfull christians. And as concernynge the naturall body and blood of our saviour Christ, they are in heaven and not here. For it is agaynst the trueth of Christes true natural bodye, to be in moe places then in one, at one tyme. (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1552/Communion_1552.htm )

The 1552 edition lasted six months, King Edward VI died of tuberculosis at the age of 15. His half-sister Mary (Bloody Mary) took the throne and re-established Roman Catholicism. She died in 1588, and her half-sister Elizabeth I took the throne. Elizabeth I re-established the Anglican Church and issued a new Book of Common Prayer in 1559. This edition followed the 1552 edition in eliminating any reference to ashes or Ash Wednesday.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, was published by John Day in 1563. This volume was an anti-Roman Catholic polemical text. Its aim was to demonstrate the historical legitimacy of the Church of England by showcasing the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy. When the 3rd edition (1576) and 4th edition (1583) of Fox’s Book of Martyrs were produced this anti-Rome sentiment had grown more strong.

In 1571 English law required that Fox’s Book of Martyrs be placed beside the Bible in churches and read alongside Scripture during the services. The 1576 edition first records how after the death of Henry VIII (1547) Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, worked to abolish the use of candles at Candlemas; ashes at Lent, and the use of palm branches on Palm Sunday. (1576 ed, bk 9, p. 1286 https://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=text&gototype=&edition=1576&pageid=1286&anchor=%20ashes%20#kw)

For the English liturgical world, Ash Wednesday was expunged from language and practice.

Claims of Pagan Origin

So, what are the supposed pagan origins of Ash Wednesday and Lent?

The claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are based on pagan origins is a relatively new fiction that comes mainly from two different sources.

The chief source is the irresponsible work of Alexander Hislop in the mid 1800s and those who followed him; both those who claim to be Christian and those who oppose Christianity.

Second main source is the neo-pagan movement today that falsely imagines that paganism is the most ancient of religions and rejects the Bible totally. But, as we have seen above, Lent and Ash Wednesday have no origins in paganism.

You will find all kinds of books, articles, videos, and websites on the Internet that claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are not Biblical because Christ never commanded them. In this way they base their argument upon the Calvinist Regulative Priciple of Worhsip.

Their claim is partly true. And Satan likes to use truth to give credibility to his lies.

It is true that Christ didn't command any such celebration. Christ did not command His followers to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Nor did he command that we worship on Sunday. Nor did He command that we sing “Rock of Ages.” Nor did he command that we use chairs or pews when we gather. Nor did he command we use Advent Candles, etc… .

The problem with the Regulative Principle is this: If Christ didn't specifically command us to do something, then it is a sin to do it. So, think about how little sense that logic makes. Take this example: Christ did not command that I have my children wash dishes. Is it therefore a sin to have them do so? No.

What Christ did command and give to His Church was that the Word of God be preached for the remission of sins; that is, that the Law and the Gospel be taught, so people would be brought to repentance; and that faith in Christ would be given to them. He commanded that sins be forgiven in His name through the absolution to penitent sinners and withheld from the impenitent as long as they do not repent. He commanded that all nations, young and old, regardless of race be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. He commanded that we celebrate the feast of His Holy Supper where He gives us His Body and Blood together with the bread and wine in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of our sins. He gave us the promise that the Father hears our prayers in Christ's name because He has made us His brothers and sisters through the forgiveness of sins—won for us on the cross and distributed to us through Word and Sacrament. The prayer and celebration of these gifts can be held any day.

It is very important to remember that the use of the Regulative Principle was the justification Cranmer used to deny what the Scripture actually teaches about the Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper.

The ancient Church recognized that it was free from legalistic obligations, both from the Old Testament Law, and from new invented laws of men. As St. Paul wrote in Colossians 2. They also knew from Scripture that they were not to use this liberty as an excuse for sin. (Romans 6) They knew that they were not to let their consciences be bound by new human regulations as if their salvation depended upon them. (Galatians 1-2) Whatever was beneficial for the teaching of God's word and for the practice of the Christian life-consisting of repentance and forgiveness in the Means of Grace-was encouraged.

With regard to Lent in general:

The 40 day fast does not come from the so-called “weeping of Tammuz” as claimed by the radical anti-Roman Catholic writer Alexander Hislop in his book The Two Babylons. Hislop made up myths and connections out of thin air because of his hatred for Roman Catholicism. Hislop's views were adopted whole cloth by many Reformed denominations and others. One should note that these views were wholely embraced by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who continued to republish Hislop's book until 1987. Hislop's book was cited in 22 different issues of the Jehovah's Witnesses periodical The Watchtower from 1950 to 1978, and several times in the 1980s. From 1989 the Jehovah's Witnesses stopped referring to Hislop's book, but they have kept Hislop's teaching and use other sources.

The month of Tammuz in Old Testament times is roughly equivalent to our July. To the best evidence, that was when the Babylonian pagans, and the fallen Israelites mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14 would “weep for Tammuz”. Also, this weeping took place on the second day of that month, right after the new moon. Not for forty days.

Two basic facts: 1) The weeping for Tammuz was not a 40 day thing. That is Hislop's fiction. 2) The month of Tammuz is 4 months after Easter. They aren't even in the same time of year. ( From the The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: Inana and Bilulu: an ulila to Inana: c.1.4.4 English Translation)

With regard to Ashes and Ash Wednesday:

Many websites claim that the use of ashes comes from pagan sources.

The ironic thing is that these websites cannot get their own stories straight. Some people assert that the ashes and Lent come from Nordic Odin worship, others that they come from pagan Roman cults, others that they come from ancient Hindu religions—and some try to maintain irrational combinations of the above very different imagined sources. We have seen above the reasons the churches gave for using ashes. They were based in Biblical examples of repentance.

But didn't Jesus tell us not to put on a show while fasting? Yes, that's in Matthew chapter 6:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

He said the same of prayer and of giving charitable gifts. His point is that these things should not be done as a show of righteousness. He did not prohibit praying in public or as a group in worship. He did not prohibit giving something publicly or to a group. And he did not prohibit using outward symbols of repentance like ashes.

What Christ condemned in these passages is thinking that we can show others how good, how sincere, how devout, and what kind of a Christian we are with these outward symbols. The ash on the forehead is a confession that the person is worth only ashes, has no righteousness, is not better than another, and needs God's grace if there is to be any hope for him or her.

It might be helpful to think of the use of ashes in comparison to the use of an Advent Wreath. Both are helpful reminders that can be used to focus upon the teaching of God’s Word. This would be a proper use.

Can the symbol be abused? Yes, of course it can. But that does not make it a bad symbol. Every gift of God can be abused by sinful people. We should expect that because of sin. So we should recognize that the ways that Christians choose in their freedom to celebrate God's gifts can also be misused.

So we see, first of all, that neither forty day fast of Lent nor the ashes of Ash Wednesday have anything to do with pagan origins. The use of ashes in the Christian faith as a sign of repentance is as old as Job, and probably older. It certainly is the outward act chosen by believers throughout thousands of years, from the earliest times as outward sign to confess unworthiness and sin.

No human can require a Christian to use the fast of Lent as a saving work. A congregation can recommend the practice as a serious self-examination of one's own sin and sinful appetites; of one's own weaknesses. This is, indeed, what Luther says, “Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed a fine outward training.” No human can require Christians to use ash on Ash Wednesday or any other day as a way of proving their faith.

And neither can any human forbid the use of the Lenten fast or the use of ashes either. Both are legalism, a replacing of the Gospel for a new law. The whole point of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Fast is to look on ourselves as worthless and utterly needy: to look only upon Christ, to celebrate His feast in the Lord's Supper, preach His passion and death upon the cross, and proclaim the Resurrection of Christ as the final seal upon our salvation.

We should reject any fictionalizing about pagan origins of Lent or Ash Wednesday with both the truth of Scripture and real history.

The Importance of The Small Catechism in 1580, 3 of 3

We conclude our look at how the Small Catechism was used in 1580; the year the Lutheran Book of Concord was published and adopted as the confession of what Scripture teaches.

Martin Luther's Small Catechism is included in the Book of Concord as one of the Lutheran Confessions.

How did they use the Small Catechism?

The official Church Rules for the Electorate of Saxony (Kirchenordnung fuer Kursachsen) published in 1580 discusses the use of the Small Catechism in three different sections:

• "Of the Catechism," 
• "Of the Annual Examination of the Catechism Which Shall Be Held in the Lenten Season with the Young Servants," and 
• "Of the Office of the Sacristan or Verger."

The third of these three sections reads:

Of the Office of the Sacristan or Verger

Afterwards each sacristan shall be obliged on Sunday afternoons and also in the week, upon a certain day, to teach the children the Catechism and Christian German hymns of Dr. Luther and afterwards to examine them about the sections of the Catechism that were taught them. And where one or more congregations belong to the parish he shall alternate in such instruction under the direction of his pastor that the youth in all the villages may be instructed in the Catechism.


---

Found in:
Reu, M. 1929 Luther's Small Catechism: A History of Its Origin, Its Distribution and Its Use. Wartburg Press, Chicago. Page159.

See also Luther's Small Catechism and Lent from March of 2014

[I added paragraphing and typographic styles to make the text easier to read]

The Importance of The Small Catechism in 1580, 2 of 3

We continue to look at how the Small Catechism was used in 1580; the year the Lutheran Book of Concord was published and adopted as the confession of what Scripture teaches.

Martin Luther's Small Catechism is included in the Book of Concord as one of the Lutheran Confessions.

How did they use the Small Catechism?

The official Church Rules for the Electorate of Saxony (Kirchenordnung fuer Kursachsen) published in 1580 discusses the use of the Small Catechism in three different sections:

• "Of the Catechism," 
• "Of the Annual Examination of the Catechism Which Shall Be Held in the Lenten Season with the Young Servants," and 
• "Of the Office of the Sacristan or Verger."

The second of these three sections says this:

Of the Annual Examination of the Catechism Which Shall Be Held in the Lenten Season with the Young Servants

First:

In the cities the superintendents (if there be any), or the pastors shall demand of

Luther's Small Catechism and Lent

Dr. Martin Luther's Small Catechism has been associated with the season of Lent since the time Luther first published in chart in time for Lent in 1529.

In his sermon of March 25, 1529, he says: "This exhortation ought not only to move us older ones, but also the young and the children. Therefore you parents ought to instruct and educate them in the doctrine of the Lord: the Decalog, the Creed, the Prayer, and the Sacraments. Such children ought also to be admitted to the Table that they may be partakers" [of the Lord's Supper]. (W. 30, 1, 233.)
(Bente, Historical Introductions, IX sec. 104 )

Our parish is one of many that has a long standing practice of reviewing one chief part each week during the Lenten season. In our practice the Catechism is read responsively in the mid-week services: with the Pastor reading the headings and questions, the congregation responding with the text of the Catechism. This is coordinated with hymns thematic to that part of the Small Catechism as well as a homily on the Scripture from which that part of the Small Catechism is drawn. In his Short Preface to the Large Catechism, Luther wrote:

For you must not rely upon it that the young people will learn and retain these things from the sermon alone. 25] When these parts have been well learned, you may, as a supplement and to fortify them, lay before them also some psalms or hymns, which have been composed on these parts, and thus lead the young into the Scriptures, and make daily progress therein. (Short Preface, 24-25)

 Our general outline for this yearly practice is as follows:

• Ash Wednesday: The Ten Commandments-The Law Of God
• Lent 1 Wednesday: The Creed-The Gospel of God
• Lent 2 Wednesday: The Lord's Prayer-The Response of Faith
• Lent 3 Wednesday: The Sacrament of Baptism
• Lent 4 Wednesday: The Office of the Keys and Confession
• Lent 5 Wednesday: The Sacrament of the Altar
• Maundy Thursday: Christian Questions and Answers

This schedule misses two parts: Daily Prayers, and The Table of Duties. These are covered elsewhere in the Church Year (Daily Prayers on Easter 6: Rogate, Table of Duties on Trinity 23).

The Structure of the Catechism and Teaching

While teaching the parts of the Catechism it is important to keep the whole in mind to understand how the parts relate to each other and why they are there.

How the Parts Work Together

The division of the Small Catechism into six chief parts plus the three extra parts gives us a convenient mnemonic device.

That mnemonic device is, The Trinity and the Number 3.

One can remember that there are three sections of the Small Catechism with Three Parts each.

• The first section focusing on the What of the Christian Faith.
• The second section focusing on the How and Where of the Christian Faith. 
• The third section focusing on the Application of the Christian Faith.

 The First Section: The "What" of the Christian Faith

The first section holds the first three chief parts, which consist of

• The Ten Commandments
• The Creed (Three Article)
• The Lord's Prayer (Seven Petitions)

These parts all are quotations from Scripture.

The Commandments are from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5; the Creed is a narrative chaining of quotations from many different passages through Scripture; and the Lord's Prayer is found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11.

In this first section we do not ask the question "Where is this written?" So when the Three Chief Parts of this section are taught, we should point to the chapters and verses where these teachings are written down. Pastors should be able to do this from memory. There are many different places where lists of passages for each of the phrases of the Creed are given. (See, for example Norm Fisher's The Nicene Creed According To Scripture which applies to the Apostles' Creed as well)

This first section gathers the teaching of Scripture on the substance of the Christian Faith: The What. So we ask "What does this mean?"

In three consecutive sections we are confronted with the Law, The Gospel, and the Response of Faith.

The Ten commandments teach us about the problem we have with God and our neighbor. This is the Law.

The Creed teaches us about the solution God provides through the Father's creation, providence, preservation and the specific saving work of the Son of God Incarnate for us; and the work of the Holy Spirit in calling us into this faith and preserving us in this faith until the resurrection.

The Lord's Prayer is where Christ teaches us how faith in Him responds to God's Grace. Because we have been made alive and declared innocent through faith in Christ, we are now His brothers and sisters by this divine adoption. We may now call Christ's Father "Our" Father. An unbeliever may use the words of the Lord's Prayer, but an unbeliever never can pray to the Heavenly Father. For prayer is a response of faith in Christ alone.

Error creeps in when one or more of these three parts is replaced with something else--as when God's work of eternal redemption is reduced to a formula for some benefit in this world, or when the Law is taught as a means of salvation, or when some Commandment is ignored or a statement of the Creed is denied.

Error also creeps in when the proper relationship and balance between these three parts is changed--as when the Law and Gospel are confused or not properly distinguished, or when prayer is made into something other than simply the Christian's response of faith.

Luther wrote of the three parts of this first section in the Preface to the Large Catechism:

15] These are the most necessary parts which one should first learn to repeat word for word, 16] and which our children should be accustomed to recite daily when they arise in the morning, when they sit down to their meals, and when they retire at night; and until they repeat them, they should be given neither food nor drink. 17] Likewise every head of a household is obliged to do the same with respect to his domestics, man-servants and maid-servants, and not to keep them in his house if they do not know these things and are unwilling to learn them. 18] For a person who is so rude and unruly as to be unwilling to learn these things is not to be tolerated; for in these three parts everything that we have in the Scriptures is comprehended in short, plain, and simple terms. 19] For the holy Fathers or apostles (whoever they were) have thus embraced in a summary the doctrine, life, wisdom, and art of Christians, of which they speak and treat, and with which they are occupied.

The Second Section: The "How" and "Where" of the Christian Faith

The second section consists of the next trio: the teachings on

• Baptism, 
• The Office of the Keys and Confession, and 
• The Lord's Super. 

These are the Gifts given by Christ that we call the Means of Grace. That is, these are the ways Christ said is "How" He gives us faith, the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life. These gifts of Christ show us "Where" we may find God's grace. So we ask "Where is this written?"

In this second section we are directed to the very words Christ spoke when He gave His promise of grace and forgiveness through these Means of Grace. Attached to these words in Scripture is His promise that these gifts are what He says they are, and that He actually gives and does what He promises through these gifts.

Each of these three parts brings us to focus on the Scripture that shows that these Means of Grace are not works that we do to participate in or earn our salvation. The Scripture cited shows that these Means: Baptism, the Keys, and the Supper are God's works for us and among us.

Christian faith is built only by God. God promises He will create and sustain faith through these visible Means. He gives us these gifts in His written Word. And these gifts are His visible/audible application of that same Gospel.

Error creeps in when an individual does not believe the promise Christ gave and recorded for us in Scripture about these Gifts. When we doubt God's Word about how He gives grace, forgiveness, and eternal life through these gifts of Word and Sacrament, then we are despising God's grace. This happens when people view the Means of Grace as merely symbols of God's love rather than as the actual Means where God says He gives His grace.

Error creeps in when Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper are twisted into works of human righteousness rather than God's works for sinful humans. That is, what the Bible says about the work and grace of God in these gifts is denied when we think of the Sacraments as things we do to show God that we are sincere, dedicated, or obedient people.

These gifts, the Means of Grace, are the heart and center of the assembling of believers for the Divine Service. Baptism, the Office of the Keys and Confession, and the Lord's Supper are, in fact, the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. These gifts are the only God' given Means through which God says He gives us His grace. And His Word and Sacrament are the only place we can go to grow in faith in God, and in knowledge of His will and promise.

Do you wish to know how to find God? Where can we seek His grace and kindness?

Here is where God says His grace may be sought. Here is where He promised to be found. This is how He builds you up, creates faith, forgives, and causes you to inherit eternal life.

The Third Section: The Application to Our Lives

The third section contains the final set of three:

• Daily Prayer
• The Table of Duties
• Christian Questions and Answers

This section focuses on the application of Law and Gospel and of the Means of Grace upon our every day life as Christians living in the fallen world and waiting for the Resurrection.

As an application, these three parts are essentially describing how a the faith of a Christian responds to God's grace under the Cross of Christ. The threefold presentation of this response of faith is arranged in a way that shows how the application of our faith in life directs us to focus back again to the Means of Grace as the place where God comes to us to give us life, forgiveness, and redemption.

First, we are directed to develop the Christian habit of prayer every day combined with learning from God's Word and reflecting on the Law and the Gospel.

Second, in the Table of Duties we are directed to Scripture so we can understand our every day calling and duties as citizens in of the three main kinds of authority God has established: Church, State, and Household. Here we learn from Scripture the nature and limits of these kinds of authority, and our obligations as we live in each of these separate estates.

And third, The Christian Questions and Answers bring us to recognize our need for God's grace to us, to encourage us and prepare us for a Scriptural trust and regular reliance upon that Grace given to us in the Lord's Supper.

This section highlights life under the Cross of Christ and the source for our life. It directs us to live lives of thanksgiving for God's grace to us both in His providence and in His saving Grace through Christ.

In this part we are directed not to hope that this life is all there is, but that through Christ and His Means of Grace God does secure us for the resurrection to eternal life.

Lent and the Small Catechism

In our parish, as Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with a call to repentance, the First Chief Part-The Ten Commandments, are read responsively. The call to repentance is based in the actual declaration of the Law of God and not upon any contrived law or regulation of sinful man.

As the season progresses so also the whole counsel of God is presented leading to the focus in the last week upon the Lord's Supper. On Maundy Thursday the Christian Questions and Answers are read responsively as part of the Exhortation for the Lord's Supper.

All of this is preparation for four things: first is to help us properly focus on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, the benefits of which we receive through the Means of Grace. Second is to help us to appreciate the great salvation the Eternal God won for us by His incarnation, humiliation, and conquest of Satan, sin and death. Third, is the help prepare us for this life or repentance and dependence upon God alone under the cross-in the case that Christ does not call us home. And last, to help prepare us for our death and resurrection, that we may be dressed in the bridal gown of our Baptisms in Christ's righteousness and not our own as we are called before the throne to be with Him in eternity.

The teaching of Scripture summarized in the Small Catechism is vital, essential. Luther wrote of the importance of continued study and learning of the Catechism in this way:

But those who are unwilling to learn it should be told that they deny Christ and are no Christians, neither should they be admitted to the Sacrament, accepted as sponsors at baptism, nor exercise any part of Christian liberty, but should simply be turned back to the Pope and his officials, yea, to the devil himself. Moreover, their parents and employers should refuse them food and drink, and [they would also do well if they were to] notify them that the prince will drive such rude people from the country, etc.

For although we cannot and should not force any one to believe, yet we should insist and urge the people that they know what is right and wrong with those among whom they dwell and wish to make their living. For whoever desires to reside in a town must know and observe the town laws, the protection of which he wishes to enjoy, no matter whether he is a believer or at heart and in private a rogue or knave.
(Preface to the Small Catechism)

Redeeming Holy Days: Ash Wednesday-Lent

Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies: Ash Wednesday-Lent

Image via Wikipedia
Fałat Julian
Ash Wednesday, watercolor, 78 x 113 cm (detail)

So, what are the supposed pagan origins of Ash Wednesday and Lent?

There are two aspects of Ash Wednesday and Lent that need to be emphasized. First is the historical nature of the forty days of Lent; the second is the use of ash on Ash Wednesday.

To put it plainly: the claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are based on pagan origins is a relatively new fiction that comes out of several different sources.

First is the irresponsible work of Alexander Hislop and those who followed him; both those who claim to be Christian and those who oppose Christianity.

Second is the neo-pagan movement today that falsely imagines that paganism is the most ancient of religions and rejects the Bible totally. But, in fact, Lent and Ash Wednesday have no origins in paganism.

You will find all kinds of websites on the Internet that claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are not Biblical because Christ never commanded them.

In part this is true. And Satan likes to use truth to give credibility to his lies.

Christ didn't command any such celebration. Christ did not command His followers to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Nor did he command that we worship on Sunday. Nor did He command that we sing “Rock of Ages.” Nor did he command that we use chairs or pews when we gather.

The false logic is this: If Christ didn't specifically command us to do something, then it is a sin to do it. So, think about how little sense that logic makes. Take this example: Christ did not command that I have my children wash dishes. Is it therefore a sin to have them do so? No.

What Christ did command and give to His Church was that the Word of God be preached for the remission of sins; that is, that the Law and the Gospel be taught, so people would be brought to repentance; and that faith in Christ would be given to them. He commanded that sins be forgiven in His name through the absolution to penitent sinners and withheld from the impenitent as long as they do not repent. He commanded that all nations, young and old, regardless of race be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. He commanded that we celebrate the feast of His Holy Supper where He gives us His Body and Blood together with the bread and wine in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of our sins. He gave us the promise that the Father hears our prayers in Christ's name because He has made us His brothers and sisters through the forgiveness of sins—won for us on the cross and distributed to us through Word and Sacrament. The prayer and celebration of these gifts can be held any day.

The ancient Church recognized that it was free from legalistic obligations, both from the Old Testament Law, and from new invented laws of men. As St. Paul wrote in Colossians 2. They also knew from Scripture that they were not to use this liberty as an excuse for sin. (Romans 6) They knew that they were not to let their consciences be bound by new human regulations as if their salvation depended upon them. (Galatians 1-2) Whatever was beneficial for the teaching of God's word and for the practice of the Christian life-consisting of repentance and forgiveness in the Means of Grace-was encouraged.

And the ancient Church chose to keep a fast during the forty days before Passover/Easter to focus on repentance and the gift of the Resurrection at Easter. St. Athanasius, who led at the Council of Nicea to defeat Arianism—a denial of Christ being truly God and man in one person—was a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote annual Festival letters to the Church as they prepared to celebrate Easter. In the year 331 he wrote in order to encourage his congregations in Egypt to keep the Lenten fast for 40 days. Athanasius directs the readers to many Scriptural examples and exhortations to moderation, self-control, and fasting for repentance, Athanasius gives several Bible examples of the 40 day fast, especially of Christ's 40 day fast, after which Athanasius wrote:

“The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth (we call Ash Wednesday); and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi (Palm Sunday), in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings, and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with precious blood, and to escape the destroyer (Exod. xii. 7, 23.). Let us rest then, on the fifteenth of the month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday Eve), for on the evening of that Saturday we hear the angels’ message, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen (Luke xxiv. 5).’ Immediately afterwards that great Sunday receives us, I mean on the sixteenth of the same month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday morning), on which our Lord having risen, gave us peace towards our neighbours.

We learn from this that even at the time the Nicene Creed was written, at the time Constantine the Great ruled, the Western and Eastern Churches practiced a voluntary fast for 40 days before Easter.

That this was practiced in Rome and elsewhere is seen in St. Athanasius' letter from the year 340 A.D. when he returns from a meeting of pastors/bishops from all around the world, and he encourages his own congregations to continue in the same practice of the 40 day Lenten fast as does “the rest of the whole world.”

In order to count the 40 days of Lent the Sundays of that season are not counted as part of the fast. Rather the Sundays are each a minor feast day. If you add the six feast Sundays to the 40 fast days you get 46 days. That means that the first day of the Fast of Lent is a Wednesday, just as Athanasius explained.

The 40 day fast does not come from the so-called “weeping of Tammuz” as claimed by the radical anti-Roman Catholic writer Alexander Hislop in his book The Two Babylons. Hislop made up myths and connections out of thin air because of his hatred for Roman Catholicism. Hislop's views were adopted whole cloth by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who continued to republish Hislop's book until 1987. Hislop's book was cited in 22 different issues of the Jehova's Witnesses periodical The Watchtower from 1950 to 1978, and several times in the 1980s. From 1989 the Jehova's Witnesses stopped referring to Hilsop's book, but they have kept Hislop's teaching and use other sources.

The month of Tammuz in Old Testament times is roughly equivalent to our July. To the best evidence, that was when the Babylonian pagans, and the fallen Israelites mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14 would “weep for Tammuz”. Also, this weeping took place on the second day of that month, right after the new moon. Not for forty days.

Two basic facts: 1) The weeping for Tammuz was not a 40 day thing. That is Hislop's fiction. 2) The month of Tammuz is 4 months after Easter. They aren't even in the same time of year. ( From the The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: Inana and Bilulu: an ulila to Inana: c.1.4.4 English Translation)

Many websites claim that the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday comes from pagan sources.

The ironic thing is that these websites cannot get their own stories straight. Some people assert that the ashes and Lent come from Nordic Odin worship, others that they come from pagan Roman cults, others that they come from ancient Hindu religions—and some try to maintain irrational combinations of the above very different imagined sources.

But ashes for Ash Wednesday do not come from any of these sources. The practice of believers using ashes to represent sorrow and repentance is well testified in the Bible. In the ancient world it was the natural formal response of those who are sorry for their sins:

For example:

• Mordecay's repentance and the repentance of the Jews in exile; Esther 4:1,3 When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
• Job's repentance: Job 2:8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
• See also Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:6; and Christ's harsh words to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Luke 10:13.

But didn't Jesus tell us not to put on a show while fasting? Yes, that's in Matthew chapter 6:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

He said the same of prayer and of giving charitable gifts. His point is that these things should not be done as a show of righteousness. He did not prohibit praying in public or as a group in worship. He did not prohibit giving something publicly or to a group. And he did not prohibit using outward symbols of repentance like ashes.

What Christ condemned in these passages is thinking that we can show others how good, how sincere, how devout, and what kind of a Christian we are with these outward symbols. The ash on the forehead is a confession that the person is worth only ashes, has no righteousness, is not better than another, and needs God's grace if there is to be any hope for him or her.

Can the symbol be abused? Yes, of course it can. But that does not make it a bad symbol. Every gift of God can be abused by sinful people. We should expect that because of sin. So we should recognize that the ways that Christians choose in their freedom to celebrate God's gifts can also be misused.

So we see, first of all, that neither forty day fast of Lent nor the ashes of Ash Wednesday have anything to do with pagan origins. The use of ashes in the Christian faith as a sign of repentance is as old as Job, and probably older. It certainly is the outward act chosen by believers through out thousands of years, from the earliest times as outward sign to confess unworthiness and sin.

No human can require a Christian to use the fast of Lent as a saving work. A congregation can recommend the practice as a serious self-examination of one's own sin and sinful appetites; of one's own weaknesses. No human can require Christians to use ash on Ash Wednesday or any other day as a way of proving their faith.

And neither can any human forbid the use of the Lenten fast or the use of ashes either. Both are legalism, a replacing of the Gospel for a new law. The whole point of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Fast is to look on ourselves as worthless and utterly needy: to look only upon Christ, to celebrate His feast in the Lord's Supper, preach His passion and death upon the cross, and proclaim the Resurrection of Christ as the final seal upon our salvation.

We should reject any fictionalizing about pagan origins of Lent or Ash Wednesday with both the truth of Scripture and real history.

Word of the Week for January 2011 week 4

Image via Wikipedia

Fałat Julian 
Ash Wednesday, watercolor, 78 x 113 cm (detail)

Who's lying about Christian Holidays? Ash Wednesday and Lent

There are two aspects of Ash Wednesday and Lent that need to be emphasized. First is the historical nature of the forty days of Lent; the second is the use of ash on Ash Wednesday.

To put it plainly: the claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are based on pagan origins is a relatively new fiction that comes out of several different sources. First is the irresponsible work of Alexander Hilsop and those who followed him; both those who claim to be Christian and those who oppose Christianity. Second is the neo-pagan movement today that falsely imagines that paganism is the most ancient of religions and rejects the Bible totally. But, in fact, Lent and Ash Wednesday have no origins in paganism.

You will find all kinds of websites on the Internet that claim that Ash Wednesday and Lent are not Biblical because Christ never commanded them. In part this is true. And Satan likes to use truth to give credibility to his lies. Christ didn't command any such celebration. Christ did not command His followers to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Nor did he command that we worship on Sunday. Nor did He command that we sing “Rock of Ages.” Nor did he command that we use chairs or pews when we gather. The false logic is this: If Christ didn't specifically command us to do something, then it is a sin to do it. So, think about how little sense that logic makes. Take this example: Christ did not command that I have my children wash dishes. Is it therefor a sin to have them do so? No.

What Christ did command and give to His Church was that the Word of God be preached for the remission of sins; that is, that the Law and the Gospel be taught, so people would be brought to repentance; and that faith in Christ would be given to them. He commanded that sins be forgiven in His name through the absolution to penitent sinners and withheld from the impenitent as long as they do not repent. He commanded that all nations, young and old, regardless of race be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. He commanded that we celebrate the feast of His Holy Supper where He gives us His Body and Blood together with the bread and wine in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of our sins. He gave us the promise that the Father hears our prayers in Christ's name because He has made us His brothers and sisters through the forgiveness of sins—won for us on the cross and distributed to us through Word and Sacrament. The prayer and celebration of these gifts can be held any day.

The ancient Church recognized that it was free from legalistic obligations, both from the Old Testament Law, and from new invented laws of men. As St. Paul wrote in Colossians 2. They also knew from Scripture that they were not to use this liberty as an excuse for sin. (Romans 6) They knew that they were not to let their consciences be bound by new human regulations as if their salvation depended upon them. (Galatians 1-2) Whatever was beneficial for the teaching of God's word and for the practice of the Christian life-consisting of repentance and forgiveness in the Means of Grace-was encouraged.

And the ancient Church chose to keep a fast during the forty days before Easter to focus on repentance and the gift of the Resurrection at Easter. St. Athanasius, who led at the Council of Nicea to defeat Arianism—a denial of Christ being truly God and man in one person—was a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote annual Festival letters to the Church as they prepared to celebrate Easter. In the year 331 he wrote in order to encourage his congregations in Egypt to keep the Lenten fast for 40 days. Athanasius directs the readers to many Scriptural examples and exhortations to moderation, self-control, and fasting for repentance, Athanasius gives several Bible examples of the 40 day fast, especially of Christ's 40 day fast, after which Athanasius wrote:

“The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth (we call Ash Wednesday); and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi (Palm Sunday), in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings, and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with precious blood, and to escape the destroyer (Exod. xii. 7, 23.). Let us rest then, on the fifteenth of the month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday Eve), for on the evening of that Saturday we hear the angels’ message, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen (Luke xxiv. 5).’ Immediately afterwards that great Sunday receives us, I mean on the sixteenth of the same month Pharmuthi (Easter Sunday morning), on which our Lord having risen, gave us peace towards our neighbours.

We learn from this that even at the time the Nicene Creed was written, at the time Constantine the Great ruled, the Western and Eastern Churches practiced a voluntary fast for 40 days before Easter.

That this was practiced in Rome and elsewhere is seen in St. Athanasius' letter from the year 340 A.D. when he returns from a meeting of pastors/bishops from all around the world, and he encourages his own congregations to continue in the same practice of the 40 day Lenten fast as does “the rest of the whole world.”

In order to count the 40 days of Lent the Sundays of that season are not counted as part of the fast. Rather the Sundays are each a minor feast day. If you add the six feast Sundays to the 40 fast days you get 46 days. That means that the first day of the Fast of Lent is a Wednesday, just as Athanasius explained.

The 40 day fast does not come from the so-called “weeping of Tammuz” as claimed by the radical anti-Roman Catholic writer Alexander Hilsop in his book The Two Babylons. Hilsop made up myths and connections out of thin air because of his hatred for Roman Catholicism. Hilsop's views were adopted whole cloth by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who continued to republish Hilsop's book until 1987. Hilsop's book was cited in 22 different issues of the Jehova's Witnesses periodical The Watchtower from 1950 to 1978, and several times in the 1980s. From 1989 the Jehova's Witnesses stopped referring to Hilsop's book, but they have kept Hilsop's teaching and use other sources.

The month of Tammuz in Old Testament times is roughly equivalent to our July. To the best evidence, that was when the Babylonian pagans, and the fallen Israelites mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14 would “weep for Tammuz”. Also, this weeping took place on the second day of that month, right after the new moon. Not for forty days.

Two basic facts: 1) The weeping for Tammuz was not a 40 day thing. That is Hislop's fiction. 2) The month of Tammuz is 4 months after Easter. They aren't even in the same time of year.

Many websites claim that the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday comes from pagan sources.

The ironic thing is that these websites cannot get their own stories straight. Some people assert that the ashes and Lent come from Nordic Odin worship, others that they come from pagan Roman cults, others that they come from ancient Hindu religions—and some try to maintain irrational combinations of the above very different imagined sources.

But ashes for Ash Wednesday do not come from any of these sources. The practice of believers using ashes to represent sorrow and repentance is well testified in the Bible. In the ancient world it was the natural formal response of those who are sorry for their sins:

For example:

Tamar's repentance: 2 Samuel 13:19 Then Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her robe of many colors that was on her, and laid her hand on her head and went away crying bitterly.

Mordecay's repentance and the repentance of the Jews in exile; Esther 4:1,3 When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Job's repentance: Job 2:8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.

See also Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:6; and Christ's harsh words to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Luke 10:13.

But didn't Jesus tell us not to put on a show while fasting? Yes, that's in Matthew chapter 6:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

He said the same of prayer and of giving charitable gifts. His point is that these things should not be done as a show of righteousness. He did not prohibit praying in public or as a group in worship. He did not prohibit giving something publicly or to a group. And he did not prohibit using outward symbols of repentance like ashes.

What Christ condemned in these passages is thinking that we can show others how good, how sincere, how devout, and what kind of a Christian we are with these outward symbols. The ash on the forehead is a confession that the person is worth only ashes, has no righteousness, is not better than another, and needs God's grace if there is to be any hope for him or her.

Can the symbol be abused? Yes, of course it can. But that does not make it a bad symbol. Every gift of God can be abused by sinful people. We should expect that because of sin. So we should recognize that the ways that Christians choose in their freedom to celebrate God's gifts can also be misused.

So we see, first of all, that neither forty day fast of Lent nor the ashes of Ash Wednesday have anything to do with pagan origins. The use of ashes in the Christian faith as a sign of repentance is as old as Job, and probably older. It certainly is the outward act chosen by believers through out thousands of years, from the earliest times as outward sign to confess unworthiness and sin.

No human can require a Christian to use the fast of Lent as a saving work. A congregation can recommend the practice as a serious self-examination of one's own sin and sinful appetites; of one's own weaknesses. No human can require Christians to use ash on Ash Wednesday or any other day as a way of proving their faith.

And neither can any human forbid the use of the Lenten fast or the use of ashes either. Both are legalism, a replacing of the Gospel for a new law. The whole point of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Fast is to look on ourselves as worthless and utterly needy: to look only upon Christ, to celebrate His feast in the Lord's Supper, preach His passion and death upon the cross, and proclaim the Resurrection of Christ as the final seal upon our salvation.

We should reject any fictionalizing about pagan origins of Lent or Ash Wednesday with both the truth of Scripture and real history.

Pastor Joseph Abrahamson
  St. Petri Lutheran Church-Grygla
  Oak Park Lutheran Church-Oklee
  Mt. Olive Lutheran Church-Trail
  Nazareth Lutheran Church-Trail