Lent

This year Lent begins Wednesday, February 22 and will end with Easter Sunday, April 8. We begin the first day of Lent (called Ash Wednesday) with an evening service at 7:00p.m. During the service we introduce two of the most powerful symbols of the Lenten Season. 

They are ‘ashes’ and ‘sand.’ The ashes are a bit more obvious because most people have seen other church goers with ashes on their forehead or hand to mark the beginning of Lent. Ashes are a sign of our transience. They remind us we are mortal and they remind us to seek God, a more stable and constant for our life.

The second symbol, ‘sand’, brings to mind our journey. Bible images of journeys illustrate the life of faith, a life of trust and dependence on God. Just as the Israelites journeyed for years in search of the Promised Land so we are on our spiritual journey.

Journeys are symbols of how we change and are affected as we ‘go through’ the times and places in our lives. Even if you did nothing your time journey would continue.

Since journey stands for change, it implies direction and movement. For Christians this movement means following Jesus and changing our ways to be more like Christ. We turn from things that are not Godlike to things more suitable as Christian endeavors. This is called repenting. Notice repenting is not just BEING SORRY. It includes change which means you have to have a plan to do better; you have to set your new course along God’s course.

Journey not only takes up time and space in our lives it also requires preparation and training. That is exactly what Lent is for…training to adjust your life so that you become more aware of God with you in your everyday life.  

For example you can set aside a day to pray more, study the Bible more, or do something good for someone. You may also make a special commitment for a special length - I’ll read the Bible every day in Lent or I’ll pray for all in need at noon everyday in Lent. We hope you will want to go to church on Sunday mornings and possibly come to our Bible study or Spirituality Class or our last Seminar on March 10.

To sum up:

All journeys require preparation, and course correction. It is this work of preparing and adjusting our course that Lent is designed for. You can see if we spend all this extra time thinking about a plan to become a better disciple and practicing it, we will be more aware of God/Jesus/ the Holy Spirit in our lives. We will be more spiritual!