All posts tagged Lent

  • February 14, 2018

    Why is There a Black Smudge on My Forehead?

    It isn’t a smudge. It is ashes in the shape of a cross. Today is Ash Wednesday.

    Like many of us who were nurtured in a Southern Baptist and/or charismatic nondenominational context, I didn’t grow up with Ash Wednesday or Lent as a part of my practice of the Christian faith. I am deeply appreciative for my Southern Baptist upbringing. They taught me the centrality of following Jesus and they gave me a love for the Scripture. I equally appreciate the years I spent in the charismatic renewal. The Pentecostal/charismatic tradition taught me to love Jesus with all my heart and remain open to the surprising work of the Holy Spirit.

    As much as I love these expressions of the Christian family, neither of these traditions gave me the Christian calendar.

    The Liturgical Calendar

    For so long I thought the church’s liturgical calendar was dead tradition, man-made religion practiced by Roman Catholics and liberal Protestant Christians. I was wrong. I was arrogant and ignorant. I was blinded by my own sense of spiritual superiority. I know better now.

    Today I observe the church calendar with a growing number of post-Evangelicals and post-charismatics who desire a rich, substantive faith rooted in the ancient traditions of the Christian faith. (Quick commercial: We are hosting a gathering at Word of Life Church June 28-30, 2018 for people who are on this journey of discovering the great tradition and looking to do church in a way that is both contextual to our present time and reaching back into the great tradition. Lean more here: www.watertowinegathering.com.)

    Nearly all Christians recognize Christmas and Easter, but what I, and so many others have discovered, is that there is an entire calendar with seasons and celebrations throughout the year. To be honest, most Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter not because they are ancient traditions, but because they are some of the final remaining relics of a Christianized-culture. In other words, non-liturgical churches typically recognize Christmas and Easter, because they are listed on the same calendar that marks Mother’s Day and Independence Day.

    To observe the liturgical calendar with its seasons like Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost is to resist the growing secularism that is the air we breathe in North America. The cultural tide has turned. The Christian faith no longer has a dominate voice in our culture and we aren’t getting that voice back. We certainly will never expand our gospel witness by engaging in never-ending culture wars. We don’t fight and clamor for the kingdom of God in order to attack secularism. Instead we resist it. Observing the Christian calendar is one of the ways we resist the ways of the world and the rising flood waters of secularism.

    Today, for the first time since World War II, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday have collided. Today is a test to see which calendar has primary influence over us. I am not saying we forsake Valentine’s Day. I bought flowers for my wife. But I bought them yesterday, hid them in my truck, and left them for her before I headed out for our 7AM Ash Wednesday Service.

    So Why Ash Wednesday?

    Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent and Lent is all about Jesus.

    In fact the entire Christian calendar tells the story of Jesus. Today marks the beginning of a 40-day journey with Jesus to the cross and ultimately to the resurrection. Every Sunday on this journey is a mini-celebration of the resurrection, so everything is not doom and gloom, but today, on Ash Wednesday, we are intentional about identifying with the sorrows of the cross so we can prepare ourselves for the joy of the resurrection. If we do nothing to prepare for the Easter celebration, then Easter becomes about Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, and Easter candy. And I am all for it! In fact, I am giving up candy and sweets for Lent so bring on on Cadbury eggs on Easter Sunday!

    Giving up something for Lent or fasting a meal or day during Lent is a way to remind us of the sufferings of Jesus, so we create a little contrast in our lives, so that when Easter comes, watch out, the joy and excitement will be palpable!

    Ash Wednesday along with the entire Lenten season is a well-worn spiritual pathway walked by millions of Christians before us. Today it is practiced not only by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians but by ordinary Protestants like me and you who want to reach back into the great tradition of the Church that we might walk more faithfully with Jesus today.

    Here on Ash Wednesday we are reminded of two things:
    1. Jesus died for our sins according to the Scripture, according to the long and winding story the Scripture tells.
    2. We will at some time also cross the threshold of death.

    We welcome the first reminder, but we recoil when anyone talks about death. To admit that yes we will all die is not to morbidly fixate on death or long for death, because as Christians we believe death is an enemy, an unwelcomed invader into God’s good creation.

    Death is indeed unwelcomed, but death is a present reminder that humanity is fragile, life is like a mist that appears for a little bit and then vanishes. Yes we are going to die, but we do not fear death, because we believe Jesus has defeated death by his death through the resurrection.

    Our response on Ash Wednesday is the same response we offer to the gospel and that is confession and repentance. For ancient Israel ashes were a sign of mourning and repentance. The ashen cross we received on our foreheads today is a similar sign. We receive the sign of repentance as a reflection of our desire to turn from sin and turn to Jesus. Sure it is weird to have someone smudge ashes on your forehead and walk around all day with what looks like dirt on our foreheads, but this mark is a part of being God’s peculiar people.

    So today I wear ashes on my forehead. Yes it is strange, but in some strange way it helps me grow closer to Jesus.

    To help you on this Lenten journey, we have created a Lent Devotion Guide with Scriptures, a question, and a prayer for every day during this season of Lent. You can download it at wolc.com/lentguide.

    Join us on this journey.

    Join us in this resistance movement.

    Join us in what Jesus is doing in and through his church today.

    No Comments / Life /

  • February 17, 2015

    Lent 2015

    lent_2015Lent comes early this year. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, is tomorrow. Christmas Day is the same day every year on the calendar. Easter moves around…something about the phases of the moon. I’m not sure. Lent has been a part of the Christian tradition for a long, long time; I have only been observing Lent for six or seven years. My mistake.

    Lent has become a regular part of the year for me. I look forward to it, not in the same way I look forward to Christmas or Easter (Have you ever tried frozen peeps!). I look forward to Lent because it has been a time-tested practice of the church to grow in faith and identify with Jesus. Lent is a season on the church calendar the 40 days before Easter that helps us to prepare for Easter. It is designed to be a time of confession, prayer, repentance, fasting, and “giving something up” in order to identify with the sufferings of Jesus. Every Sunday is a mini celebration of the resurrection, but Easter Sunday is the ultimate celebration of the resurrection. For those of us following Jesus resurrection is a BIG deal. So for many of us the season of Lent has become a big deal. Lent is important as a way to prepare for Easter, because…

    You cannot know the joy of the resurrection without enduring the sorrow of the cross.

    Lent gives us a slow, winding, meticulous way to reflect on the sufferings of Christ culminating on his death on the cross. Lent is not convenient. Lent is not comfortable. It does not fit our consumer-driven sensibilities. It does help to form us in Christ-likeness. It does help expose our idols. It does help us to grow up.

    At Word of Life Church, we are venturing out into the Lenten season with four Ash Wednesday Services (7 a.m., noon, 5:30 p.m., and 7 p.m.) and then we are praying every day (except for Sunday) in our Upper Room prayer chapel at 12:15 p.m. These prayer gatherings will follow a Midday Prayer Liturgy that will sound and feel the same every day. We are baptizing people on the first Sunday of Lent and we are offering Lenten Small Groups on Sunday morning immediately following the worship service. We have also put together a Lenten Scripture Reading Guide to focus your Bible reading on the sufferings of Christ.

    For me personally, I am reading three books: Simply Good News by N.T. Wright, Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers compiled by Andrew Louth and Maxwell Staniforth, and Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words by Rod Bennett. I try to pick books to read during Lent with a particular focus on Jesus. This year I wanted to read from some of the writings of the church fathers. I threw in an N.T. Wright book in the mix just because.

    I invite you to join us on this Lenten journey. Pick some meals or days during the week and fast. Give something up. Seek out silence. Repent. Give yourself to prayer. Join a small group. Read. Read slowly. Read contemplatively. Expect things to change. And most of all, look for Jesus.

    No Comments / Life, Ministry /

  • March 4, 2014

    Lent 2014

    It is time to change the mood.Ash Wednesday 2014

    It is time to pull back.

    It is time to rethink, restart, repent.

    It is the season of Lent.

    I am preparing myself for Lent now for the seventh time. I have been practicing Lent since 2008,  when I was growing increasing tired of Christian fads and gimmicks and I was longing for something to connect me to my Christian heritage, something I couldn’t buy for $99.99; I had been looking for a well-trodden path of spiritual formation. I found it in the age-old practice of Lent.

    I blogged on why I practice Lent two years ago. No need to rehash all the details of the great benefits of Lent. It may be sufficient enough to say that Lent is a way to enter into, and connect with, the sufferings of Jesus.

    “I calculate everything as a loss, because knowing King Jesus as my Lord is worth far more than everything else put together!…This means knowing him, knowing the power of his resurrection, and knowing the partnership of his sufferings. It means sharing the form and pattern of his death, so that somehow I may arrive at the final resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:8,10-11 (Kingdom New Testament)

    Any talk of suffering sends waves of rebellion down my spine. I, like most people, resist suffering, choosing the path of comfort and ease if it is up to me. Lent is a particular focus on suffering. You certainly cannot package Lent and sell it in a Christian bookstore. The beauty of the practice of Lent is found in its lack of marketability and it is not up to me! The practice of this season is what the church has done since the early Middle Ages. It is a handed-down tradition. (Well…I do have some say in how I choose to fast during Lent, but the times and season have been set by the church.) The fact is without the historic practice of Lent, I would not fast as often as I should. Lent has helped me form good habits of fasting and repentance.

    Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright

    This year I am fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, which has been traditional fasting days for the church. My plan is not to eat solid food on those days. (I will break my fast after church on Fridays.) In addition to fasting solid food I am taking a break from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’m breaking away from social media to devote time to prayer, Scripture, and spiritual reading. I am finishing THE BIG PAUL BOOK (otherwise known as Paul & the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright). This two-volume book will be my primary reading during Lent. I started this 1,700-page-reading-marathon on the first Sunday of Advent last December. It been a long process working through both volumes, but it is seriously the most important thing I have read in the last 15 years. In order to devote my time to reading, I will spend less time on social media. I hate to lose contact with people through Facebook and Twitter. I guess I will have to go old-school and depend on email. I will not be checking my Facebook or Twitter accounts during Lent, so if you need me, email me, or contact me through the church website.

    I will blog during Lent.

    A couple of exciting things are happening over the next seven weeks. I will have the chance to meet N.T. Wright in person later this month. He is speaking in Overland Park on March 27 and I feel like a 12 year-old girl getting ready to go to a One Direction concert. No joke. I am beside myself with excitement. I will blog on that event….with pictures….pictures of me and Tom ya know!

    I will also be going on one or two shakedown hikes to test out my gear for the upcoming Georgia section hike on the Appalachian Trail in June. I am equally excited about the hike this summer. After Easter, I will be seven weeks away from the hike. So if you think I am obsessing over hiking now…just wait. I will blog a bit about my Spring hikes with pictures and video.

    I am ready for Lent this year. I have my fasting plan. I have my reading plan. Next up: ashes.

     

    If you are in the St. Joe area, I would invite you to join us for one of our four Ash Wednesday services in the Upper Room at 7AM, noon, 5:30PM, & 7PM. These are identical services, so I encourage you to join us for one of them. 

    No Comments / Life, Ministry, Theology /

  • February 22, 2012

    Reading Ideas for Lent

    Ash Wednesday is tomorrow! We are just about 12 hours away from beginning our 40-day journey through Lent. I have been spending the day getting ready for Ash Wednesday. We are hosting services at Word of Life Church at 7AM, Noon, & 7PM in our Upper Room Prayer & Worship Center. We are using the Book of Common Prayer as our guide, a prayer book dating back to the time of the English Reformation. In reading through the instructions for Ash Wednesday in this prayer book, I was reminded that we observe Lent “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

    Lent is not just a season of prayer and fasting, but it is also a season of reading, spiritual reading, holy reading. As you join us on this Lenten journey, I encourage you to read in addition to fasting and prayer. Here are some reading ideas for Lent:

    1) Scripture
    Our pastor has complied 40 Meditations on the Holy Week. This guide gives you Scripture reading from the last week of the life of Jesus in the gospels, a short passage for each day during Lent.

    2) Books by N.T. Wright
    It has been my tradition to a read book about Jesus during the season of Lent and two out of the last three years I have read a book by N.T. Wright who is perhaps the most important living theologian writing and lecturing and preaching on the person of Jesus Christ. This year I am reading Simply Jesus.

    3) The Church Fathers
    During my first Lenten journey, I read selections from the writings of the Church Fathers, who were early church leaders in the first 300 years or so of the Church. The wonderful people at ChurchYear.net have created an easy to follow guide through the writings of the church fathers. I suggest you follow the “New and Shorter Alternative,” the “LITE plan” as they call it. You can download the complete text here.

    4) Other Good Christian Books
    There are numerous other books you can read in addition to what I have mentioned above, but adding another book may make your reading list a bit long. In addition to Scripture, and N.T. Wright’s book, I will be reading The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll. This book was published in 1994 and has been on my reading list for a long time. I picked it up yesterday, so it has been added to my Lenten reading.

    May God bless you on your Lenten journey this year.

    This is the prayer I am offering tomorrow at the end of our Ash Wednesday Service. It is from the Catholic Church’s International Committee on English in the Liturgy:

    Father in Heaven,
    Protect us in our struggle against evil.
    As we begin the discipline of Lent,
    make this season holy by our self-denial.
    Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ
    who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
    one God, for ever and ever.

    No Comments / Life, Ministry, Theology /

  • February 16, 2012

    Why I Practice Lent

    I have been a follower of Jesus for 26 years, spending all of my time worshiping in churches not known for observing the church calendar, not known for following many of the ancient traditions of the Church. The truth is that all local churches have traditions they keep. Traditions, in and of themselves, are not bad. We are after all habit-keeping creatures. We all form patterns. To some degree, we all find comfort in routine. “Lent” was not a part of my vocabulary until about five years ago. If you would have mentioned “Lent” to me ten years ago, I would have quickly thought of that foreign substance in my belly button or that soft material collecting in my dryer vent. In recent years, I have been making an effort to practice Lent and I want to invite you to join me in this Lenten journey.

    Lent is forty-day season of prayer and fasting leading up to Easter, Resurrection Sunday.

    Followers of Jesus gather every Sunday for worship to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. This is true. We particularly worship on Sunday because this is the day Jesus rose from the dead. The earliest follower of Jesus were nearly all Jewish and they purposely moved their time of worship from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. However, the ultimate day of Christian celebration is Easter. Every Sunday is a mini-celebration of the resurrection leading up to this ultimate day of celebration. So the days of Lent are counted Monday through Saturday. During Lent we do not fast on Sunday. Every Sunday is a feasting day.

    So why do I practice Lent?

    I did not grow up with this practice. Lent was not a part of my early Christian development. Lent is not a requirement by either Scripture or my church. So why do I invest forty days of my life in this spiritual journey of fasting, prayer, self-denial, and extra attention towards Scripture and devotional reading? Here are my thoughts:

    Lent is about Jesus.
    The traditional Lenten fast is not merely about the tradition itself. My participation in Lent is not about the novelty of doing something different. It is not a matter of “sticking it” to my evangelical upbringing that devalued the ancient traditions of the faith. Lent, and my participation in it, is about Jesus, plain and simple. (Which is why I am reading Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright during Lent in addition to other Scripture reading.) Lent is a way to identify with Jesus who fasted forty days in the wilderness. (I will not be going without solid food for forty straight days. I will be fasting for complete 24-hour periods and certain meals during the forty days of Lent.) This tradition allows me to share in the sufferings of Jesus, in a small degree, so I can celebrate the joy that comes with resurrection.

    Lent creates contrast.
    It does not seem to me that we can experience joy without the contrast of some suffering. If all of our Christian experience is “happy-happy, joy-joy” all the time, then Easter rolls around and becomes more of a time for Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. Please do not misunderstand me. I am pro Bunny. The Bunny, the Bunny, o I love the Bunny! As much as I am pro Bunny, the over-indulgence of chocolate and marshmallow Peeps is a momentary, superficial kind of joy. It is not the same joy experienced after forty days of self-denial. We cannot experience the joy of the resurrection without enduring the sorrow of the cross. We cannot experience the joy of Easter without the sorrow of Lent. Human beings simply require this kind of contrast.

    Lent gives me a structured way to focus on less popular spiritual disciplines.
    I hate fasting. I can confess this without a hint of guilt. I detest fasting. In all honesty, I enjoy it as much as I enjoy a trip to the dentist. So Lent helps in this regard. It gives me a structured and focused way to fast during a specific block of time. By fasting, I mean abstaining from solid food. On the days (or during the meals) I fast, I continue to drink water. I have also allowed myself to drink coffee during my fast days. Some people choose to give something up for Lent as a form of self-denial. “Giving something up” is a great practice, just remember Sundays are not fasting days. On Sundays you are free to eat and participate in whatever you have given during Lent.

    Lent allows me to connect with the ancient roots of my faith.
    I find a richness and a sense of depth to my faith by walking down this well-trodden Lenten path. Followers of Jesus for hundreds and hundreds of years have walked this path on the road to the resurrection. For far too long, I was arrogant and self-absorbed with my narrow evangelical world. I would willingly receive the Scriptures from the ancient church and some doctrine, but I had zero desire to receive any of her practices. I was wrong. The traditions of the ancient Church are gifts to the contemporary Church. According to John Wesley, our faith is rooted in a quadrilateral of Scripture, tradition, reason, & experience. I need the traditions, the traditional practices of the Church, to live a faith that is less superficial and sentimental.

    Lent allows me to repent.
    Followers of Jesus are a stranger mixture of sinner and saint. I am no different. If I only claim to be a sinner, I undervalue the work of the Spirit in me, transforming me to look more like Jesus. I certain have grown in Christ, but I have not arrived. If I only claim to be a saint, I tend to ignore my sin, especially those sins that so easily knock me off course. Lent is a forty-day time to repent, that is, to turn from our sins and turn in faith to Jesus. The need for repentance is why we begin Lent on “Ash Wednesday,” which is February 22 this year. (There is a Jewish practice of covering yourself with ashes as a sign of repentance, which is where we get the title Ash Wednesday.) With or without literal ashes, Ash Wednesday, and the forty days of Lent, expose my sin and lead me to repentance.

    So join me, join us, in this Lenten journey. I will be leading three, identical, 30-minute Ash Wednesday services at Word of Life Church in St. Joe next week. Services will be at 7AM, noon, & 7PM. I hope you can join us if you are in the St. Joseph area or find a church where you live and participate in their Ash Wednesday service.  

    1 Comment / Life, Ministry /

  • February 17, 2010

    Lent 2010

    Today is the eve of Ash Wednesday (some traditions call it Shrove Tuesday). It is the day before Lent begins. It is the final day of preparation for a 40-day season of prayer and fasting that will lead up to Resurrection Sunday, the ultimate day of Christian celebration. This will be my third year practicing Lent. It has become a helpful practice for me. It has given me a systematic way to be disciplined in the area of prayer and fasting. And I need all the help I can get when it comes to fasting, because…well…fasting stinks. Eating is so much better than fasting. But I have come to find the value in delaying gratification, in saying “no” to natural appetites, so that I can say “yes” to a hunger for righteousness.

    This year I am reading through N.T. Wright’s book Jesus and the Victory of God during the 40 days of Lent. Wright was my companion last year during Lent as I devoted 40 days to his massive book on the resurrection. This year I am reading through his book on Jesus, a fitting focus for Lent.

    I am not observing Lent, because it has become in vogue for young, hip, contemporary, postmodern evangelical-types to take up ancient practices.

    I am observing lent because I have repented of pride and arrogance.

    For so long, I carried myself in pride, scoffing at traditional Christian churches with all of their “dead” rituals and traditions. I assumed that the traditions in my brand of Christianity were the only valid traditions because we have guitars after all; not to mention multi-media projectors and web infused technology! I have come to realize that my brothers and sisters in Christ who belong to more liturgical traditions have something to offer the greater body of Christ. Ancient traditions like Lent help us slow down and pay attention.

    I have repented of my arrogance (and ignorance). I am learning to walk down, well-worn paths like Lent, paths that have been walked by millions (billions?) of Christians before me. I have repented of my snobbery and I have welcome in the traditions of the past. Traditions are not so bad. Concerning tradition, G.K Chesterton wrote:

    “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.”    –G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

    Join us on this 40 -day journey of prayer and fasting. Some people chose to give something up for Lent, which is just fine. There are no rules. My oldest son Wesley, said he wants to give up Pop-Tarts for Lent. I say, “Go for it.”

    You choose how to pray and when to fast, but use this as an opportunity to confess and repent of sin and identify with Jesus. This is the purpose of Lent: to identify with Jesus, to see Jesus, to love Jesus, to commune with Jesus, to encounter him passionately, deeply, and reverently.

    For more info and resources go to: http://www.churchyear.net/lent.html

    Here is my prayer as I go into Lent 2010. It is a song from Dustine Kensrue:

    “Consider the Ravens”
    By Dustine Kensrue

    I’ve got bills to pay
    Taxman on my tail
    Just keep prayin’ that
    the check’s in the mail

    There are times it seems
    when everything’s lost
    and I’m moaning, I’m tossed
    and I see..

    Between the river and the ravens I’m fed
    Between oblivion and the blazes I’m led
    So father give me faith, providence and grace
    Between the river and ravens I’m fed
    Sweet deliver, oh you lift up my head
    and lead me in your way

    I’ve grown sick and tired
    of trying to stand still
    I’ve learned to let the wind
    pull me where it will

    Throw myself into
    the will of the wait
    I can never be great
    ’til we’re free

    Between the river and the ravens I’m fed
    Between oblivion and the blazes I’m led
    So father give me faith, providence and grace
    Between the river and ravens I’m fed
    Sweet deliver, oh you lift up my head
    and lead me in your way

    Although I’m walking through
    the valley of the shadow of death
    evils all around
    It’s coming from the right and the left

    Trust that I will see
    the glory above
    Oh, your banner of love
    flies over me

    Between the river and the ravens I’m fed
    Between oblivion and the blazes I’m led
    So father give me faith, providence and grace
    Between the river and ravens I’m fed
    Sweet deliver, oh you lift up my head
    and lead me in your way

    Amen and Amen

    Here is a live version of Dustin Kensrue performing “Consider the Ravens”

    5 Comments / Family, Life, Ministry, Theology /

  • March 2, 2009

    The Cross of Christ

    April 12th is Easter, Resurrection Sunday, the ultimate day of Christian celebration when we celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and hell. In order to prepare for Resurrection Sunday, we are spending five weeks on Sunday mornings talking about “The Cross of Christ.”

    For a number of years I did not prepare for Resurrection Sunday. Ok, so maybe I went shopping for a new tie, but for the most part Resurrection Sunday was just another Sunday. This is not our heritage as followers of Christ. The church has always celebrated the resurrection on Sunday. This is why we normally conduct worship services on the Sunday; it honors the day Jesus rose from the dead. Every Sunday is a mini-celebration of the resurrection. Nevertheless, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years the Church has dedicated on day to be the ultimate celebration of the resurrection, the Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring…Resurrection (or Easter) Sunday.

    Resurrection Sunday has historically been a day of celebration…renewing ourselves in the joy of the resurrection. And to experience the joy of the resurrection you need to reflect on the sorrow of the cross.

    Lent is the historic way to prepare for Resurrection Sunday.

    Lent is a way to identify with Jesus’ 40 day fast in the wilderness before his public ministry began.

    Lent is a way to reflect on the cross.

    At the cross we see Jesus not as:
    •    Our life coach
    •    Our love guru
    •    Our therapist
    •    Our motivational speaker
    •    Or our mystic guide

    Rather we see a humiliated, failed revolutionary being executed by the reigning empire… a failed revolutionary who billions of people for nearly 2,000 years have worshipped as the Son of God and Savior.

    So why would he do it?

    The 19th Century Danish philosopher Soren Kiekegaard said about Jesus:

    “That one should push through the crowd in order to get to the spot where money is dealt out, and honor, and glory – that one can understand. But to push oneself forward in order to be flogged – how sublime, how Christian, how stupid!” — Training in Christianity

    The cross is a paradox, a contradiction.

    At the cross we see the glory and the shame; the beauty and pain in Jesus death.

    For many people the cross is simply offensive. It is offensive to people who (like the ancient Greeks) are looking for wisdom, or self-help principles, or trite, pithy, common-sensical statements about life. Those who are looking into Christianity in order to find something to improve their lives are often offended when they are offered a bloody, tortured man on a cross.

    It is a shocking, horrific scene, pitiful and offensive, but the cross of Christ is the pinnacle of history. Time is split by this one six hour event into BC (before Christ) and AD (not “After Death,” but the Latin phrase: Anno Domini, “after death). The cross of Christ split time and it is central to what we believe as followers of Christ.

    Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures. This is of primary importance.

    The Apostle Paul, who was a religious hit man turned early church leader told a church in the ancient world: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

    Here’s the deal:

    God who is maker of heaven and earth created us in his image. Sin perverted and corrupted us like a PC with corrupt files that will never boot up Windows no matter how much we cuss, scream, and bang on the keyboard.

    Sin has made us less than human and utterly/eternally disconnected from God our Creator and Father. Because of our sin, we deserve death, hell, judgment, and punishment. But GOOD NEWS—Jesus came to be our substitute. On the cross, Jesus died in our place for our sins, bearing the guilt and shame of our sins and bearing the wrath of God, that our sins incurred.

    From the cross, Jesus becomes our Savior and our Healer in order to make us into the new humanity body and soul. As the Savior he forgives us of our sins (past, present, and future). As the Healer he heals us physically and emotionally.

    But forgiveness and healing come only as a result of the unthinkable, the ultimate gasp—the death of God. The cover of Time magazine on April 8, 1966 proclaimed “the death of God” and at the cross of Christ we see that very thing, the unimaginable death of God.

    We will explore theses theme on Sunday mornings at Cornerstone Church in the weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, April 12. Here are the five messages:

    March 1 :: The Offensiveness of the Cross
    March 8 :: Jesus our Substitute
    March 15 :: Jesus our Savior
    March 29 :: Jesus our Healer
    April 5 :: The Death of God

    No Comments / Ministry, Theology /

  • February 25, 2009

    Lent 2009

    Reading N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God

    Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. So gather all that ash from the fireplace and grab your burnt sticks; it’s time for forty days of repentance all you sinners!

    I knew tomorrow was coming and I am ready…sort of.

    Ash Wednesday marks the beginning Lent, a 40-day season of fasting and prayer that leads up to Resurrection Sunday, April 12, 2009. It is a way for followers of Jesus to identify with his 40-day fast in the wildernenss, by choosing certain ways and certain times of prayer and fasting. (I wrote a 5 page guide here: www.cornerstoneamericus.com/lent.) It is a way to reflect on the sorrow of the cross in order to rightly celebrate the ultimate Christian celebration — Easter Sunday, when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

    Every Sunday morning is a mini-celebration of the resurrection, which is why most of us attend worship services on Sunday, but if you do not practice Lent, it is possible to treat Rez Sunday like an ordinary day. Not for me. Last year was the first year I practiced Lent and it made Rez Sunday 2008 much more than a regular Sunday.

    So I am ready for Lent, but I am looking at the next 40 days with a bit of apprehension. For one, I hate fasting. There is nothing fun about hunger pains and caffeine withdrawal headaches. (I am going to do something about the headaches this year as I am adding coffee to the list of acceptable drinks during my fast.) I am going to fast one to two days a week during the six weeks of Lent. I hate fasting, but I love it, because it is such a powerful spiritual pathway. It does not change us, but it puts us in a position where God can go about the process of changing us.

    Also I am reading N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God during Lent. That’s 738 pages in 40 days. Some guys want to climb Everest, some want to run marathons; I want to read a 700 page book.

    For me it will be a 40-day period of sermon preporation so that I can stand up on Rez Sunday and have something meaningful to say.

    So join us for the fast, join us for Lent, join us in identiying with Jesus so we can celebration his resurrection.

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