We have entered the season of Lent, a time of penitence and solemn reflection for many Christians. Mirroring Christ’s forty days of temptation in the wilderness, many believers choose to make this a time of prayer and fasting as they anticipate the victory of Easter. To a cultural moment that celebrates unfettered pleasure, comfort, and convenience, Lent offers a stark reminder of our mortality and our hope in Christ and His resurrection. The practice may be a mainstay in many of our churches, but in cultural terms it’s liable to appear quite alien. While it’s true that not all Christians choose to celebrate Lent, this article offers some thoughts on why the theme of Lent might be helpful for all of us who follow Jesus today.
Firstly, why are we so averse to considering our mortal condition? This was certainly not always the case. In 1973, the renowned sociologist Ernest Becker offered a unified cultural theory on this hesitation in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death. Though I can’t do justice to the subtleties of his argument here, I can say that a significant factor in this denial of death has to do with unbelief. Put simply, those who live as though they are without a Maker often try to hide from the isolation imposed by this assumption by filling their lives with as much busyness and noise as possible.
But the modern world turns not only on comfort and convenience. It turns on aspirations of control. Naturally, we can't return to how things were before modern medicine. Who in their right mind would want to? However, it’s also clear that our ability to instantly defeat most physical pain is far from neutral. In the Middle Ages, human vulnerability in the face of filth, disease, and warfare was unavoidable. Though it’s clear that a return to such primitive conditions is far from desirable, it’s also true to say that the average peasant likely had a more grounded view of the human condition.
Today, death is a discreet business and even the mourning process is often carefully screened. But the relative hiddenness of death now means we lack the frequent, visible reminders that help us live well each day, mindful of our mortality and our humble position before God. It’s only when a close friend or family member contracts a serious illness, or a loved one passes away suddenly, that we get these reminders. For a moment, we’re given a chance to reflect on our lives more deeply.
These reminders to reflect on our mortality used to be more common than they are today. Called memento mori—which means “remember you’re going to die”—these practices are powerful ways for helping people to remember to “number [their] days,” as Psalm 90:12 says. In stark contrast, many of today’s leading tech geniuses have made immortality their ambition, whether it involves somehow extending the human lifespan indefinitely, or by ushering in the advent of the “singularity” that will supposedly constitute the next stage in evolution. Conversely, think back on classic paintings and wood carvings that routinely featured human skulls amid the hustle and bustle of daily life. Far from some morbid preoccupation, this theme functioned as a visual reminder of humanity’s frailty and dependence on its creator. If you doubt our aversion to signs of death, imagine a home with tastefully placed memento mori. Even some of the more subdued expressions that we find in Flemish paintings depicting dead trees and other signs of life’s transience are likely to inspire raised eyebrows.
In this sense, I recall preaching on this Psalm 90, which is a prayer of Moses, at a church in Connecticut. This “Meeting House” was built in 1761, and there are two objects beside the pulpit: a candle on one side and an hourglass on the other. Few in the congregation realized their purpose. Before I began speaking, without telling the congregation why I was doing it, I lit the candle and then turned over the hourglass. When I reached the verse about numbering our days, I explained that these visuals were memento mori, teaching us to live our brief sojourns on earth wisely and well, never presumptuously. When I finished the sermon, I blew out the candle and turned the hourglass on its side—time out.
Once again, memento mori may sound morbid to the modern mind, but these reminders have shown up in objects as well as art and music for centuries, serving as prompts for deep and important reflection.
Today, a more well-known ritual expression of memento mori is the observation of Ash Wednesday, a holy day set aside in liturgical churches to mark the beginning of Lent. During church services, ashes are often imposed on people’s foreheads in the form of a cross, while the rector or priest says some rendition of these words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19; see also Psalm 103:14; Ecclesiastes 3:20). For some years in my Wednesday Morning Men’s Fellowship in Atlanta, we did a variation of this practice on Ash Wednesday. Instead of limiting the statement to the curse of Genesis 3:19, however, I sought to combine this memento mori with a blessing. I looked into each man’s eyes, held his shoulder with my left hand, and while imposing the ashes in the shape of a cross on his forehead with my right hand, I said, “Remember that you are mortal in this life, and eternal in the next.”
An exclusive focus on our mortality can be a rather barren prospect. The consistent materialist (a person who believes material explanations of reality are exhaustive) will see our lives as nothing more than an infinitesimal flicker in a vast and indifferent universe. If, however, our destiny is eternal life, this reframes our entire perspective on life and death. Specifically, we are liberated to see our lives from an eternal perspective.
May we take this blessing to heart as we learn to number our day and as we look forward with great anticipation to eternal life in the arms of our Savior.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Nambitomo
Kenneth Boa equips people to love well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a writer, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life in the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
