Do not bother looking for Lent in your Bible dictionary, because there was no such thing back then.

There is some evidence that early Christians fasted forty hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the custom of spending forty days in prayer and self-denial did not arise until later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith.

When the world did not end as Jesus himself had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves.

They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines, remembering their once-passionate devotion to God the way they remembered the other enthusiasms of their youth.

Oh, to be young again, and to believe everything is possible.

from Home by Another Way