Wednesday, March 5, 2025

It is the 5th of March 2025, Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

It is that time of year- perhaps tax season for our accounting friends and for me, the time when I get asked all the questions about the calendar and why Easter is never on the same day and what about the orthodox and why do people give up things for Lent… and what on earth is “Lent” and why do some Christians spend an afternoon with black smudges on their foreheads?

I was in the locker room at my local YMCA this morning when some gentlemen were discussing what they thought was “National Pancake Day” and it took everything in me to not shout over the lockers “It’s shrove Tuesday- or pancake tuesday, or “fat tuesday” all the day before Lent in the Western church begins on  Wednesday.

“Shrove” is the archaic past tense of “shrive” which means to confess, as we prepare ourselves for “Ash Wednesday” which begins the “Lenten” season. Historically, this was the last day before the fast that included dairy products, so, use your eggs and make your pancakes because once the fast started, you’d be out of luck. Of course, how did “eggs” become associated with Easter? The chickens don’t know it's Lent and keep laying eggs and so… we have plenty to decorate and then hide.  

Lent, of course, is 40 days in the West- but if you do the math… there are MORE than 40 days between this Wednesday and Easter- and that is because there are certain days- primarily Sundays which fall during the season and you aren’t technically supposed to be fasting on feast days (so, your eggs and pancakes, cheeseburgers, candy… if you choose to give something up you can indulge on Sundays and March 25th, the day of the Annunciation).

“Lent” simply comes from the old word in various languages meaning “lengthened” as in Spring the days are getting longer. Ash Wednesday- the practice of penitence and being marked with ashes and reminded of your mortality goes back to the 11th century, also he century that the Western and Eastern churches split, and there is no “Ash Wednesday” in the Eastern churches. Instead, to make sure there are 40 days in the season, they begin 48 days prior to Easter with “Clean Monday”- the beginning of a fast that leads you into the season.  

And this year is one of the rare years that the Orthodox and the Western churches celebrate Easter on the same Sunday. The Orthodox Church has decided, despite switching to the same calendar as the West (the Gregorian), they would continue to calculate easter on the old Julian calendar. As the two calendars continue to diverge, we in the West will only sporadically have the same lenten and easter season until 2070, when the two calendars will never coincide again. There have been overtures lately to unify the celebration of Easter on the same day, after all, celebrating Easter together as a unified church was one of the primary engines behind getting the council of Nicaea together in 325.

Amongst my Protestant friends this becomes the season of asking “is that too Catholic?” And the Gospel reading for today from Matthew 6 might give us pause (but I’ll let you wrestle with that and give you that reading at the end of the show). Many, if not most Protestants, dropped the practice over time but picked it back up in the 20th century. If it’s not too late, let me remind you once again to mix the ashes with a little oil, not water as that can cause a chemical reaction.

And, while I welcome all your Lent and easter questions: remember, Easter is computed by finding the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after March 21st. You then count backwards to figure out your Lent, your Ash Wednesday, and what the guys at my gym were calling “national pancake day”. A blessed season of penitence but not a penitence and repentance “hoping” to be forgiven, but in the sure knowledge that while Lent starts today, Easter morning has come, and is coming in 40 days.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary as promised, from Matthew 6:

6 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. X 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you…. 16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others 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.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 5th of March 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who thinks giving to the poor whilst playing the trumpets is also just bad manners, impractical at least, he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose gonna get some ashes today, and then wonder when I should wash them off… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.