Lent and Movies

Well I caught up with my Bible reading earlier tonight, then I convinced my lovely wife to watch Flight of the Concords in the bedroom whilst I wasted the rest of my evening watching (and then having to write a review of) a load of absolute crap.

Lent Confession

I’ve decided that updating my blog every single day with inane comments on my lent journey is rather pointless, so from now on you’ll going to get occasional updates, like this one.

I’ll start with a confession; I’m one day behind on my Lent reading, but I’m not going to sweat it, it was after a very full on weekend, followed by a full on Monday. I’ll be able to catch up before the weekend.

The most disturbing thing about my Lent commitments is that I’ve found myself daydreaming about gorging myself on chocolate and then diving into a pool of cold diet coke. It’s either a sign that I was far too addicted to the two evil C’s or that I have an over active imagination that just isn’t getting enough sugar to function properly.

Time will tell I guess.

Lent 05

Still managing to keep to my Lent commitments, though with such a full on weekend, and the horrible mugginess of today, grabbing a cold can of coke was a real temptation...

Lent 04

Bible Reading:
To tired to post the details!

Coke: none
Chocolate: none:
COD4: none

Offers of Chocolate: 3 (all turned down)
Offers of Coke: 1 (turned down)

Cravings: Junk food, Coke & Chocolate.

Lent 03

Bible Reading:
Social Responsibility
A Call for Justice
Three Annual Festivals
A Promise of the Lord's Presence

Coke: none
Chocolate: none:
COD4: none

Offers to 'look after' my XBox 360 and COD4: 1
Gifts of Chocolate: 1 (accepted but put away for Easter)
Favourite Verse so far: Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people... sounds rather Tarantino.

Lent 02

Bible Reading:
The Ten Commandments
Proper Use of Alters
Fair Treatment of Slaves
Causes of Personal Injury
Protection of Property

(it's parts of the Bible like this that put people off reading the Bible!)

Coke: none
Chocolate: none
COD4: none

Lent 01

Bible reading:
Manna and Quail from Heaven
Water from the Rock
Israel Defeats the Amalekites
Jethro's Visit to Moses
Jethro's Wise Advice
The Lord Reveals Himself at Sinai

Coke: none
Chocolate: none
COD4: none.

Lent 2008

Lent, in most Christian denominations, is the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter.^[1] The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan.^[2] Different churches will calculate the forty days differently.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated during Holy Week, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Western Christianity, Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday.^[1] The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.^[2] In those churches which follow the Byzantine tradition (e.g. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics), the forty days of Lent are calculated differently: the fast begins on Clean Monday, Sundays are included in the count, and it ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The days of Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are considered a distinct period of fasting. For more detailed information about the Eastern Christian practice of Lent, see the article Great Lent.

I've managed to avoid doing anything for Lent for all of my Christian life. But at Church on Sunday we were given Preparation Packs for Lent 2008.

I thought to myself, maybe it's time to embrace Lent and Self Denial as an experiment in discipline, something I'm not very good at.

So for lent, to honour God through my physical body, I'm going to attempt to give up Coke and Chocolate for 40 days.

To free up some time (a very precious commodity that can be easily whittled away) I'm giving up COD4 for 40 Days. This should free up some time so that I can commence reading my newest Bible; The One Year Chronological NLT Bible.

It's going to be a hard task, but I guess that's the point of Self Denial, and I'm inviting you to keep me accountable. I'll be posting my daily success (or failures) every night before bed.

Self Centred Sacrifice?

It seems that one of the perks of having worked at the Baptist National Center is that now I've left, I get sent the monthly newsletters, including Coffee Break by the National Administrator, Kelvyn Fairhall.

In his most recent newsletter, he makes a comment on lent:

One of the disciplines of lent is to give up something for the duration [of Lent] as a symbol of sacrifice but it is really only effectual if one in like manner also gives out to others. Without doing so the "sacrifice" is somewhat self-centered - that is antithetical don't you think?

The comment got me thinking about what some people do for Lent; give up coffee, give up TV, etc, etc. But seldom do you hear of people saying that they are going to give up coffee and give the savings to charity, or give up on TV and spend a couple of hours a day helping out in the community.

Do we for the most part only take part in Lent so that we can feel good about ourselves?

It's not a question I can really answer as I have never given up anything for Lent - I have never seen any tangible reason for doing so, until now.

Giving up something and replacing it with servanttude towards others seems like a tangible reason for observing Lent. I might have to re-evaluate my Lenten response.