Over the past several years, I have begun to observe a time of reflection during the Lenten season. Some years, I “give up” something so that the desire of missing it reminds me to reflect. Some years, I take on lawn chores on every Saturday during Lent to remind me of “the curse.” Most years, I dedicate the time to reading some book that helps me reflect on the season. This year, i chose to read two books. The first book was Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal by Esau McCaulley.
This short book of just over 100 pages is the first book of the Fullness of Time series of books. The plan is to publish a book for each major season of the ancient church liturgical year.
Many American Evangelical churches have their own modern liturgical year:
- Stewardship Sunday,
- Easter,
- Mother’s Day,
- Graduation season,
- Memorial Day,
- July 4th Sunday,
- New School/Ministry season,
- Thanksgiving season and
- Christmas season.
Most American Evangelicals are ignorant or confused about the ancient church liturgical year. Some even fear or disdain it because it seems too Roman.
A day or so before Ash Wednesday, which starts the Lenten season, I read a Facebook post by a Baptist pastor analyzing the season of Lent. The Lent described in this post was based upon a popular, outsider view of the season. So much of the post was not close to reality. It was similar to what we see at Easter and Christmas when non-Christian journalists try to describe those holidays. This is another example of why I like books that let the proponents describe their perspective instead of books that have antagonists describe what they think the proponent’s perspective is.
I first became familiar with Esau, the author of this book and the editor of the series, on the The Disrupters podcast. At first, I was taken aback by some of the things he said from his perspective. As I listened more and more, I was more and more convicted that Esau was exposing my prejudices. I have come to enjoy reading and listening to him.
This book lays out the real understanding of Lent from the ancient traditions. I would highly recommend this book to really understand the season of Lent. I have already added the rest of the series to my Amazon wish list. I was able to get this Lent book for free for being a subscriber to the Holy Post Book Club. The list price of each of these books are about $20 to pre-order. I do not know what will happen to the other books as they are published, but it seems that now the Lent book is $5 cheaper.
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