A few nights ago, as a committee was planning a midweek Lenten supper, I suggested that I could provide dessert by setting up my wonderful new chocolate fountain, a grownup "toy" that I had just received this Christmas. After a few seconds of strained silence, someone suggested that maybe a chocolate fountain was too much for Lent. Others agreed. It was decided that rice krispie treats or even brownies were okay, but a chocolate fountain was "over the top" as far as Lent was concerned.
     I've been thinking about this the last few days. Isn't it true that we all have differing approaches to Lent, the church season in which we now find ourselves. Some think that it is just too "Katlick" for us good Protestants to do much about. Some give up something for Lent--like chocolate. Others go to every midweek Lenten service and every service leading up to Easter.
    The word “Lent” comes from an old English-Germanic word (“lencten”) which means “spring.”  It’s the forty day season (not counting the Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday.  It has been observed by Christians long before there were Catholics and Protestants.   It has a two-fold purpose: to focus on our complete sinfulness and inability to save ourselves from those sins and, even more, to meditate on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ which has saved us from sin and it’s power to enslave us.
    We have the freedom in Christ which allows us to ignore Lent; that is, not to change our life style one bit.  Or we can “give up” something for Lent as a Lenten discipline, as means of helping us focus on Christ. 
    The three traditional Lenten disciplines are prayer, fasting and giving to the poor.  Today, some people give up something they enjoy, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes. 
    Most give up some kind of food or even completely fast for a period of time.  Fasting was the practice of the apostles (Acts 13:2; 14:23).  Jesus even encourages the Christian to fast, but not with any public display, and promises a blessing (Matthew 6:17-18).
    Whatever you do for Lent remember that the point of all this is that you have a Savior who by his suffering and death saved you from your sin!  And perhaps giving up the chocolate fountain helps us to better focus on that wonderful good news.