Heather A. Goodman's blog

As we move through the story of Christ and his body, we come to the forty-day season of Lent. It is a time of fasting and prayer to prepare for Easter, the most joyous and victorious day of the Christian year.

Lent represents the forty days Christ withdrew and fasted as he prepared for his earthly ministry. During this time, waiting for that point when Christ would be his weakest, Satan threw his full forces at Christ: you don't have to do this, Satan said. There's an easier way.

The Bible is not a book of moralities. The Bible is the ultimate myth. Now, before I am misquoted and extracted from context (although, to be honest, I am not famous enough to warrant quoting or misquoting), let me explain what I mean; let me define myth.

Do we have a theology of failure? Not of suffering, but of failure.

We tell one another, "God will work all things out for good." Or, "It wasn't meant to be. God has something else in store for you." And those may be true, but is that all we've got?

When I was in junior high, a friend of my father would engage me in theological debate. Of course, I wasn't up to the task, but I consider it part of my training. I loved every minute of it.

"Why didn't you wear a head covering in church today, Heather?" he'd ask.

I'd stammer and stutter. I didn't know then about the cult prostitutes and the new Roman woman. But the one phrase that caught me said, "But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should cover her head."

We'd crack the perforation on the Advent calendar to reveal the day's picture--a Nutcracker, perhaps, or a doll, or maybe a wise man preparing for his journey, depending on that year's theme. Or we'd break another link on our homemade chain made of red and green construction paper. As the chain shrunk, our excitement grew.

We started our Christmas lists in May. A new doll would arrive on the shelves, or a friend would get the latest tape from some band. "Put it on your Christmas list," mom would say.

Most of us recognize that certain things in the Bible were written for certain times, certain cultures, and we don't practice them today. For example:

- do we practice the Sabbath from sun-down on Friday to sun-down on Saturday?

- do we sacrifice doves at the birth of a child?

- do we greet one another with a holy kiss (on the lips, no less!)?

- do we refrain from braiding our hair?

C. S. Lewis wrote, "The character of evidence depends on the shape of the examination... It determines how much of that total truth will appear and what pattern it will suggest" (Lewis, The Discarded Image, 223). In other words, we understand truth in light of the questions we ask and how we ask them.*