Is there a day of the year that a person can live wild, loose and crazy and God will look the other way? Some believe today is that day, it's called Fat Tuesday or in French Mardi Gras.
As the Catholic church spread around the world it encountered many wild customs that were traditional. Some included drunkenness, sexual orgies, nakedness, provocative dancing, costumes, masks, and revelrie, all performed in the open.
No matter how much the church spoke against it, the people did it anyway, so the church decided to try to put limits on all the wickedness it encountered. To remain blessed, believers were allowed to party wildly as long as they waited until after the Christmas Holidays and stopped before Ash Wednesday which begins the 40 days of lent leading up to Easter.
So, people who live in areas with a heavy Catholic influence celebrate Mardi Gras-They party hard from January up to Ash Wednesday (which changes each year). They cry out Laissez les bons temps rouler" which is French for Let the good times roll. Very few church leaders speak against it because "he who speaks against a party OK'd by God must be of the devil."
Today, is the last day before the party stops. It's called Fat Tuesday -There will be more parties, drinking, public lewdness and sexual activity, homosexual and lesbian displays, and public nakedness than the eye can see. Police officers will look the other way, unless someone is physically threatened.
Church leaders won't speak against it, in fact if you look in the crowd many church leaders, pastors, deacons and otherwise holy folks will be laughing, dancing and indirectly endorsing the activities with their presence.
Tomorrow it all stops. Catholic churches will be filled with believers who will attend special worships to get ashes placed on their foreheads. For the next 40 days they will give up something they like, such as coffee, colas, or sweets to do penance for all of the sins they knowingly committed during Mardi Gras.
After that, they will return to their regular lives, frowning on public drunkenness, homosexuality, wild parties, lewdness and ungodly activities. Until next year, anyone who does most of things that are allowed today will be arrested for disgraceful displays of unlawful activity.
Those who are not Catholic or not Christians at all, watch at a distance and probably think God is a conflicting deity. He condemns wild living most of the time, but then gives everyone a free one-day pass, if they give up something for 40 days.
Somehow, I find it difficult to picture Jesus, the apostles, or the millions of martyrs who died for the kingdom of God participating in, endorsing or supporting what appears to be a mockery of the faith.
Over the shouts of the Mardi Gras crowds I hear Galatians 6:7-8 which says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
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