When Ritual is Beneficial

Have you noticed some strange behavior among the inhabitants of our countries this Week?

The populace in New Orleans pigged out on Tuesday – “Fat Tuesday” … Scores of folks up-and-down the Americas appeared to have “missed a spot” when washing their faces and showed up at work, or wherever, with a quite large smudge smack in the middle of their foreheads.

What, pray tell, has been going on?

Well, actually, a very long lasting Religious Tradition’s going on. It’s known as “Lent.” A Tradition that began in some form as early as the 4th Century – AD 325. During the 40 days before Easter – not counting the Sundays – Christians make an effort to prepare their minds and hearts to recall and, in some way or another, relive the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. Some fast. Others set aside extra time for Bible Reading and prayer. The “fat Tuesday” crowd never looks to me like they’re the “fasting” types but they claim their “pig out” is justified by the imminent “fast.” However the faithful observe this important period in the Church Year there’s a common sense that if Jesus fasted for 40 days at the commencement of his Public Life the least we, his followers, can do is set aside a similar block of time for Him. We can engage in some form of discipline and reflection. We might even benefit from relentless self-examination, repentance, spiritual resolve, and renewed dedication.

Some Christians do not observe this Tradition. Many overlook or disavow it because of their belief that ritual is, or all too often becomes, empty, mechanical, and inevitably meaningless as does so much that is “rote.”

In “A Preface to Paradise Lost,” C.S. Lewis helps us see “rites” in a different light. “When our participation in a ‘rite’ becomes perfect, we think no more of ritual but are engrossed by that about which the rite is performed; but afterwards we recognized that ritual was the sole method by which this concentration could be achieved.”

Ritual perfected really does play a singular, irreplaceable role in our lives. A TV Show – “The Biggest Loser” – provides an example. Tho’ there’s a lot about this show that gives its name considerable ambiguity it does show how important discipline – a form of ritual – really is to quality of life. Anyone who watches the participants going through their regimen can see that it’s anything but enjoyable. But, when the weigh in shows progress, all the whining resolves in ecstasy. Finally, when the ultimate goal of true fitness is realized, the highest achievers insist that, “it was worth all the hard work!” “I will never be the same again!” As we well know the “regimen” maintained is the only thing that will insure they are “never the same again.”

So it is with the disciplines of fasting, prayer, meditation and contemplation, diligent Bible Study, silence and solitude. Engaging in these “rites” to “know” Christ we inevitably find we’ve discovered him all over again. His love, enlightened by the magnitude of His sacrifice, moves us deeply. We see true strength in His undeterred determination to suffer; to drink to the very last bitter drop the “cup” he was given. We weep as we remember that the shame and ridicule leveled against Him ought to have been poured out on us. We want to cheer at His death cry, “It is FINISHED!” Sadly this is foreign to many people, even professing Christ-followers. They’ve declined to participate in the “rite.” They’ve missed the “ritual” by which “this concentration could be achieved.”

For most of my life I have missed it … In 1983 a Friend gave me a book. Titled “Reliving the Passion,” this little book, by Walter Wangerin Jr. is written to be used for Lenten Meditation from Ash Wednesday ‘til Resurrection Sunday, all other Sundays excluded. That year Lent became an annual “rite” for me. I assure you the level and nature of my Love for Jesus has been transformed by this discipline. In a very real sense I have come to “think no more of the ritual” because I am increasingly “engrossed,” by Christ “about” whom “the rite is performed.”

May we, together, this year, in a Lenten discipline, learn more of what Jesus meant when He said genuine “worship” will be “in spirit and in truth.”