Pancakes and Lent

In a staff meeting recently, Jan introduced us to a very old tradition, that no one else on staff had heard of before. She told us that Shrove Tuesday, also known as Fat Tuesday, was traditionally celebrated by eating pancakes. You may know that Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lenten season, which is characterized by forty days of repentance and fasting, leading up to Easter. The church began this practice, to mirror Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the wilderness. In case you’re curious where pancakes fit into all of this, in the Middle Ages, people were very serious about the discipline of fasting during Lent. There were several “forbidden” foods, including eggs, milk and sugar, and in order to keep them from going to waste, people made them into pancakes as a final “feast” before the forty days of fasting began.

While there might be an uproar in your house if you decide to eliminate eggs, milk, and sugar for the next forty days, we thought it would be a fun opportunity to gather as a community to feast on pancakes, as an intentional way to celebrate the start of the Lenten season together. While we’ve moved away from much of the rigidity of the spiritual practices of the Middle Ages, many of us still may want to take some time to reflect on how fasting from something might enable us to feast on other things: to remember Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, to feast on God’s lavish grace and love, to dedicate ourselves more fully to Jesus, or to focus on spiritual renewal. Others, instead of fasting from something, might choose to observe Lent by taking on a spiritual practice, perhaps by setting aside more time for prayer, reading a daily devotional, or practicing gratitude. The options are endless, but the most important part is to reflect on the “why” you are doing what you are doing.

We believe that starting with pancakes might help you remember the “why.” We start Lent by feasting—remembering God’s goodness and the ways he lavishes his love and grace upon us. I’m struck by how often the Lord told Israel to remember the ways God had delivered them through feasts. To this day, many of the Jewish Holy days involve feasting and remembering. At Kairos, we celebrate Communion every Sunday, a “feast” in remembrance of Christ’s demonstration of his love on the cross.

Let us not lose sight of where we are going during the season of Lent; we are journeying toward the cross, but ultimately toward Christ’s victory over death, the forgiveness of our sins, and the gift of eternal life, through the miracle of the resurrection. If we keep this in mind, we see our fasts not as burdens, but as things that keep us focused on where we are going. We are remembering Jesus’ sacrifice for us, but ultimately, we are celebrating the gift of his resurrected life, his love and his grace that fills our hearts with joy and eternal purpose. It’s no surprise, that Jesus uses the image of a feast, a great wedding banquet, to describe his Messianic Kingdom (Matthew 22; Rev 19). As we journey toward the cross, we are invited to follow a God who lavishes his grace on the undeserving, a God who went to the ultimate lengths to demonstrate the depths of his love for you and me, and a God who said that life with him is like being invited to the greatest feast you could imagine. If you’re a kid (or a kid at heart), I think a pancake dinner with your church family is a pretty great way to remember the “why” of Lent.

–  Miriam