Deep Lent: A Beginning

Deep Lent takes off from the fact that the festival calendar in Israel of Old had 80 feast days, and one fast day, and yet we are asked to mourn and fast in some ways for 40 days, in anticipation of celebrating the Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection of the New Creation.  It seems odd.

And then I thought, maybe we should mourn that we have done such a bad job obeying what Jesus commanded us.  Let me quote: Matthew 28 (KJV) ¹⁸ And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

¹⁹ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

²⁰ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

It’s been 2000 years!

And we have the Holy Spirit!

Do I propose a transformed 40 days.

A--40 days of mourning for bad things that have been done. We know some are chatisements of sons. We know we sin and flee to Jesus for repentance.  Etc.

B—40 days of wonderful and Providential gifts.

C—40 days of looking forward to more such gifts.

D—40 days of more chastisements unto maturity in redemptive history and the holy war against the devil (God’s devil: Luther) and the devil’s angels.

So, four for each day of Deep Lent.

One can use such books at ‘The 100 Most Significant Events in Church History,’ and ‘Timetables of History,’ etc.

Yes, this requires a maturity, but even though it’s been 2000 years, it’s still early days.  What we don’t fill in this Deep Lent, we can fill in next Deep Lent.

Here’s one that many won’t think about. It has two faces.  The first is that of Providential gift, and the second is that of more chastisements/challenges in the future.  The chastisement/challenge is this:  How do we handle abundance?  The gift is this:  How did The Great Fact come about? Innovation! McCloskey says that fostering innovation (respecting, rhetorically supporting) in a milieu of ethics (7 virtues: prudence, temperance, justice, courage, faith, hope, charity) is what produced the GREAT FACT that we live '100' times better than in @ 1700.  Innovation. 'Bourgeois Dignity'. Holland, England. Destroys other  theories. If we can continue to foster innovation…

In 1800 the world was Bangladesh, $3/day (present value). @1700 it was worse. The Great Fact is that Norway is $137/day now, e. g.

You and we can come up with 158 more and better, right?