When I was growing up, I just assumed everyone celebrated Mardi Gras. In my family, when Fat Tuesday rolled around, my mom always made a great meal (it wasn’t until I was old enough to tolerate spicy food that she’d make jumbalaya), but there was always a King Cake for dessert. Much of my mom’s youth was spent in Slidell, Louisiana, thus Mardi Gras wasn’t just the day before Ash Wednesday, it was a cultural phenomenon that took over the region.
I remember how delicious the King Cake was—the coffee-cake like pastry was filled with sugar and cinnamon and covered in purple, green and gold icing. My parents would have family or friends over to celebrate. But the highlight was hoping that this would be the year that I’d get the piece with the plastic King Cake baby.
The King Cake baby was literally hidden inside the cake. If you were the lucky one to get the piece that had the baby, your “prize” was that of hosting the next party. Since I was just a kid, I thought the prize was being the one who got a cool little trinket in my cake—like searching for Easter eggs.
Looking back, however, the history behind the King Cake, and even the specialness of the King Cake baby has an interesting meaning. The baby is a symbol for fertility and new life.
As my Lutheran congregation enters the Lenten season, this symbol of new life may not be the first thing my parishioners think of. For Christians, Lent is a penitential time—a thoughtful reflection on the time leading up to Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. You’re supposed to be somber, thoughtful—fast and abstain from certain objects that you enjoy as a means to imitate Christ.
The Lenten theme this year at my church will be “The Gift and The Response” in which we’ll consider God’s action and our response to the gift of salvation. In many ways, we are celebrating the daily dying and rising that we as Lutherans do—the new life that we experience each and every day as children of God.
In our tradition, we are given the gift of God’s love each and every day—our sinful self dies and is forgiven. Martin Luther, in his explanation of baptism in the Small Catechism says this: “The old Adam in us should, by daily repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts; and that a new person daily come forth and arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Our Lutheran understanding of Christ’s action and our response is that of new life, each and every day. Mardi Gras is often thought of as that last chance to celebrate before entering Lent. What if instead, the day before Ash Wednesday was seen as an opportunity to remember the new life that is celebrated throughout the 40 days of Lent?
No matter what your tradition, faith background, or if you do not believe in God, Lent is a part of the culture around you. On Wednesday, you’ll see crosses made with ashes on people’s forehead. In the lead up to Easter, you’ll be reminded of Easter Eggs—a pagan symbol of rebirth that the Christian church borrowed as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. You’ll overhear people “giving up” something for Lent.
But for me this Lent, I’m going to try to be appreciative of the gifts God has given me. I appreciate the opportunity to dialogue on this blog and have the ability to learn more about each others faith backgrounds. I will appreciate the freedom that comes through our religious experiences and personal experiences. I will appreciate the gift I’ve received of new life, but will respect that this gift is one that not all of my peers recognize or recognize the same way. I will appreciate the ways that my own views have been challenged, changed, and strengthened by engaging in the dialogue that State of Formation has to offer.
My response will be to continue to give back of myself, to share of my own traditions, beliefs, and experiences. Perhaps the more of this dialogue we can have, the more we can understand why we all believe and practice the traditions that we do. What does Lent mean to you? Does it mean anything to you? Is there a way that Lent can be better understood by the non-Christian practicing world?
Instead of dwelling on where I fall short and what I have to give up for Lent, I offer up a response of appreciation of new life and responding to each other’s pains and hurts. Is this a starting place that Christians and non-Christians can go to without diminishing the history, tradition, and sacredness of Lent for an exclusive Christian conversation?