Clean Wednesday

I've always loved Lent. It is one of the strong points of Upper Midwestern Lutheranism that there's a strong tradition of Wednesday Lenten services each Wednesday, not just on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, as I observed among many Lutherans in other parts of the USA. The extra helping of devotion to Christ Crucified has always seemed luminous to me. Some Christian traditions would decry our lack of "fasting", and they could be right, but there is such a healthy willingness here to set aside other pursuits, and such a special, glowing quality to our Lenten Wednesday evening services, that it seems to me that that in itself is a kind of fast. Lutherans don't do seasonal fasting (which to some would seem too "Catholic"), nor do we often set aside special, personal times of prayer and fasting (the form which Protestants do more lip service to, though it actually is done very seldomly). We could do with a lot more fasting. After all, it's in the Bible. We who trumpet the Bible, "Sola Scriptura", can be just as conveniently selective as anyone else about which portions of the Bible we will actually pay attention to. (It happens that starting tomorrow evening we have plans to attend a five-week vegetarian cooking workshop at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church - interesting teachers for our Lenten fast!) But, to our churches' credit, there is a great desire shown to exercise the kind of fast recommended in Isaiah 58:6ff.

One thing about the Scandinavian Pietist Lutheran Ash Wednesday tradition - it is done without ashes, and I'm OK with that. I've been in on the ash tradition, and I have no quarrel with those who find it meaningful. I believe it's connected with the concept of repentance in sackcloth and ashes. But our wing of Lutheranism likes to do things plainly and simply, so the ashes are omitted. This is an interesting congruence with the Eastern Orthodox tradition (not the only such congruence between Orthodoxy and Scandinavian non-Scholastic Lutheranism), which begins Lent not with "Ash Wednesday" but "Clean Monday", referencing Matthew 6:17,18: "But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

I suppose in light of those verses it would be backwards to signify fasting with an unwashed face, but not to fast! Pray for us, that the inner fast we begin on this "Clean Wednesday" will truly result in inner cleansing and the greater glory of God.