Keeping Body and Soul Together
Goodbye, buns. Hello, Lent.
For centuries, this coming Sunday was known as Quinquagesima in the Church of England, meaning there are about 50 days until Easter. Common Worship has dropped the intriguing name in favour of the plain but confusing ‘Next Sunday before Lent’. The ‘next’ is an odd choice there given that this Sunday is, in fact, the last Sunday before lent.
Lent is meant to be simple. And like all simple things, it requires some preparation. The ‘Gesima’ season which, to be honest, I’d never really heard of until this year, is about preparing for Lent. Last Sunday was Sexagesima. This Sunday is Quinquagesima. And then Lent begins on Ash Wednesday next week.
There are two kinds of preparations, the physical and the spiritual. Both are important for body and soul. We are not gnostics who divide the two. Lots of modern evangelicals (like me) elevate spiritual disciplines over physical ones, and so our patterns of life become secular and wordly, making the spiritual battle harder. So we need to consider both realms. Let’s start with the physical.
Preparation #1 The Physical
You never need to look far to find a bun to go with any Christian celebration. In Northern Europe and Scandinavia, Lutherans celebrate ‘Fastelavn’ which means ‘fast eve’. Lenten fasting is coming, so get some cake inside you as quickly as you can. A Fastelavnsboller is a round sweet bun, covered with icing and filled with cream and/or jam. Why not make a round of buns for the Lord’s Day in preparation for Lent?
Other countries eat up their meat supplies. The word ‘carnival’ means ‘goodbye meat!’ For this reason, Quinquagesima has been known as ‘Pork Sunday’ in some places. Why not have a roast pork? Or ham?
Preparation #2 The Spiritual
Traditionally, the two readings set for Quinquagesima were 1 Corinthians 13 and Luke 18:31–43. They prepare us for Lent, keeping things simple. What is life all about? How is it to be lived? What does it mean to follow Jesus? At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul explains what it means to live together as the body of Christ, all gifted in different ways. But how should we serve each other? With love.
1 Corinthians 13 is a famous exposition on love, often read at weddings, although the King James Version renders the word as ‘charity’. To our modern ears, this sounds odd, since we’re used to hearing the important but nebulous and elusive word ‘love’. The passage reaches a crescendo with:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Charity, rather than love, seems better to encapsulate bearing with others, and not exercising one’s own rights and privileges, or even making use of one’s own gifts for the service of others when you could step back and allow others to have this joy. There is a self-abasing humility to charity, which is an aspect of love we would do well to remember in a world which says “the heart wants what the heart wants.” That is not love.
The Blind Man
The gospel reading for Quinquagesima shows this charity of Christ in action. Jesus uses his status and gifts to heal a blind man near Jericho. The story is very similar to Mark’s version in which the man is named as Bartimaeus. He is celebrated this Sunday because of his simple but insistent faith, calling out to Jesus, Son of David, despite those around him insisting he should pipe down.
As it happens, I’ve just been studying another healing of a blind man which makes a similar point: the man blind from birth in John 9. This is a truly remarkable passage of scripture which appeals to me because it is also funny. (I talk about it in my Water into Wine show.) A man by the side of the road who has been blind from birth is healed by Jesus who spits on the ground and makes mud with the saliva. Then he “anoints” the man's eyes with the mud and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
When the man returns with his sight, his neighbours, ironically, don’t recognise him! It is like they are now blind. But this is just the beginning. He is immediately hauled up before the Pharisees. Even though these self-righteous types have no actual political power or authority, they demand to know why Jesus would do such a thing on the Sabbath. Making mud and anointing eyes constitutes work and is a breach of their absurdly high standards for the day set aside for rest and refreshment. Jesus is a sinner. God does not listen to a sinner. Therefore, Jesus could not have healed this man. Who is standing in front of them. Who can now see. Oh.
Faith, Plain and Simple
I could write thousands of words about this chapter. One day I shall. But what is interesting here in terms of preparing for Lent is the simplicity of the man’s faith. He speaks plainly without pretension or artifice. He begins by explaining what happened and, when asked what he thinks about Jesus, he said “He is a prophet.” (John 9:17)
A little later, more emboldened, he says of Jesus:
“Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
But the blindness of the Pharisees continues as they ask:
“What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
The man’s reply is priceless:
“I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
Boom. He realises they simply will not see what is plain and is now cracking jokes at their expense. When he meets Jesus again later and discovers that he is, in fact, the Son of Man, the man born blind now truly believes and worships.
In the season of Lent, we would do well to remember the example of this man. He knows what he knows, speaks honestly about his experience of Christ and leaves it at that.
Can we try that? We rather assume (especially us modern evangelicals) that we have to have a lengthy conversation with unbelievers about doctrine or apologetics. Why not speak about what is plain? We can speak simple truths about how we follow Christ, which is hard but worth it. We can explain we’re not eating the biscuits because we’re doing Lent and trying to get back to basics. In our complex lives, there is something appealing in that. We might be surprised at the results. And let’s be honest: is anything else working? Have we over complicated things? Let’s strip it all back, lean into Lent and see what happens.
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