Lent as Spring Training

Major League Baseball’s spring training season has begun. In Fort Meyers, Florida players for the Minnesota Twins are running drills and playing catch and batting balls. Ash Wednesday coincides with the first spring training game day, and the regular season begins on Palm Sunday. Coincidence? Of course it is!
But it is a coincidence that offers us a useful metaphor for Lent. Lent is the spring training for the life of faith. As early as the third century of the Common Era, Lent was observed as a time to prepare new Christians for their baptism on Easter Sunday. The whole church community was involved in the training of new Christians, which Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker describe in their book Saving Paradise:

“It was akin to applying for, attending, and graduating from college while also training for an Olympic team sport and undergoing group therapy.”

Church membership was not taken lightly. During the years of Roman persecution, Christians were burned at the stake for “atheism” (because they refused to worship the emperor), so the church out of necessity had to protect the identity of its members, and prepare aspiring members for the rigors of life within a persecuted church. People had to apply for membership, appear before the bishop with their sponsors, who could attest to their sincerity and character. If they were accepted as candidates for baptism, weeks of training followed. There was a physical as well as a spiritual and intellectual component to the training, the disciplines of prayer and study were entwined with the discipline of self-restraint. Thus began the Lenten fast.
Life in the church today is comparatively easy, so I would imagine that those saints of old would consider us pretty soft, our spiritual muscles flabby and underused. Though we don’t have to stand up to torturous inquisition, or run from lions, or the law, or torch-wielding mobs, we could do with some training up for the challenges that our life, in our age, brings us.
Lent is a good time to resume faith practices that have fallen by the wayside, or take up faith practices which we have not tried. Keep in mind that balance of body, mind and soul—body work might mean physical involvement in the mission of the church, serving up meals as the soup kitchen, wielding a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, knitting a prayer shawl. Mind work might mean reading along with one of our book groups, or coming to Adult Forum. Soul work could mean regular worship attendance. Try to come every Sunday in Lent. If you already come every Sunday, then add Wednesday evenings too.
Lent. It’s spring training for the life of faith.