Do You See This Face?

This is the face of a man making good music. This face will be on stage at Suckau Chapel on March 9, 2008. You want to be there.

Suffering

A significant theme in Lent is suffering. We remember the suffering of Jesus on our behalf and we, like Paul, "want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10).

I'll begin with a question for your contemplation: “What is suffering?”

What does it mean to suffer? // Is suffering the mark of New Testament Christianity? // Are we supposed to want or avoid suffering? // Is all suffering godly? If not, how do you know the difference? // How do you reconcile what feels like suffering to us with the plight of so many in our world whose suffering is more constant and severe? Do you minimize your own context, or do you suppose that suffering is relative to context? // Did Jesus have to suffer … was there any other way?

Pending your comments, I’ll plan on writing about some of these questions in the next few days.


A LENTEN PRAYER: (taken from ELCA.org)
Jesus, who knew temptation and hunger for our sake: Free us from all covetousness, and wake us from indifference to evil. For the life of the world, we pray; Amen.

Eternal God, whose image we bear: You have created us to live by more than bread alone. Nourish us through your Word and release us from the selfishness born of fear. In Jesus' name we pray; Amen.

Christ, who wept over Jerusalem: Look with compassion upon the cities of our time; that our children might live to adulthood and enjoy a future filled with hope. In Jesus' name we pray; Amen.

God, who searches for the lost: our season brings the lengthening of days and longer light reveals what had been hidden. Cleanse our hearts as we spring-clean our dwellings, that we give away what we no longer need and justice and kindness have ample room. In the name of Jesus we pray; Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 4

Humility and Fellowship

In humility we are becoming less concerned with our prestige. Our wills are breaking and we are not demanding our rights anymore. Fear is losing its grip as we cling to our identity in Christ. Pride is being starved because we are letting go of or need to be right and our desires to be recognized. Humility is freedom to see who we are and become like Jesus.

But to see who we are, we must be seen by others. To use Dan Allender’s phrase, “You can’t see your own face.” That is, when God shines light on our lives, we become visible to others. And if they are honest they will tell us what they see – the good, the bad, and the incidental.

It’s not that other people’s opinions are absolute truth, but neither are our isolated opinions of ourselves. Humility in this sense is being willing to be seen as we are, by at least a few people, over time. Our pride resists this kind of exposure, but it takes humility to become humble. A final thought from The Way of The Cross on this topic:

Anything which shows us what we really are is light. But when we in any way try to hide what we are or what we have done, that is darkness. The first thing which sin in our lives will make us do is to hide what we are. When our first parents knew that they had sinned, they hid behind the trees of the garden. Sin has had the same effect on all of us ever since. When we have sinned, we try to hide it in some way.

We cannot show our real self, so we pretend to be different from what we are. We say one thing to someone and a different thing to someone else. We like to make things look better than they are. We excuse ourselves and put the blame on others. We can all do this by being silent as well as by saying or doing something. This is what John calls “living in the darkness.”

Perhaps the sin is only being self-conscious: but, remember, everything that comes from self is sin. Perhaps we hide it by pretending to be what we are not. Even this is living in darkness.

We cannot be in the light with God, and in the darkness with our brother. We must be as willing to know the truth about ourselves from our brother as to know if from God. We must be ready to let him hold the light to us, and we must be ready in the same way to hold the light to him. We must be willing to know ourselves for what we really are, and we must be willing for our brother to know this as well.

We will not hide ourselves from those with whom we should be in fellowship. We will not cover our faults. We will speak the truth about ourselves with them. We will be ready to give up our spiritual privacy. We will not keep bad feelings in our hearts about another person.

If we aspire to love one another, then we aspire to be humble enough to give and receive whatever the light reveals.


SCRIPTURE READING: 1 John 1 and 1 John 4:7-21

BROKENNESS, part 2

I want to offer another excerpt from The Way of the Cross:

How can we be broken? This is both God’s work and ours. God shows us that we need to be broken, but we must choose. We must be willing for God to show us the truth about ourselves. Unless we do this, we cannot have fellowship with him. We must be ready to listen to what God says to us. If we are ready to do this, he will show us the things which come from our proud, hard self.

When he does this we can do one of two things. We can become proud and refuse to repent, or we can humbly bow our heads and say, ‘Yes, Lord.’ The man who knows, day by day, the meaning of brokenness is the man who humbly agrees to what God shows him about himself.

We must be daily broken before God. This may cost us a great deal. We shall have to give up all our rights. We shall no longer live to please self. Sometimes we may have to give back something we have wrongly taken from others.

There is only one place we can be broken. That place is the cross of the Lord Jesus. He was willing to be broken for us. When we realize this we must be willing to be broken for him.

This is not something which happens only once in our lives. There will be the first time when God shows us these things and we die to self. But from then on we must always be dying to self. Only in this way can the Lord Jesus always be showing his life through us. The choice will be made hundreds of times a day.

SCRIPTURE READING: 1 Peter 2 (with particular focus on vs. 11-25)

BROKENNESS

The Old Testament connects humility with the experience of Israel’s slavery in Egypt – a poor, afflicted, suffering people. The New Testament idea is not far from this. The Greek that is translated “humility” or “humble” means “lowly” or “to make low.”

For example, Jesus said, "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4).

The picture of humility, then, is to empty ourselves of prestige. We demote ourselves in status and become like kids (who were not worshiped in Jesus’ day as they are in ours). We become last among men.

Humility sounds good in writing. It even has a cool, subversive vibe. But to step into the reality of your world is to remember how contrary this is to your thinking. In so many ways we are accustomed to building ourselves up – proving our worth, impressing people, wanting to be noticed and honored. Ironically, we even hope to be recognized for our humility.

If you thought giving up TV or chocolate for Lent was hard, give up trying to get recognition or attention for a day. You will find that our desire to be lifted up is subtle and pervasive.

In a little book called The Way of the Cross, Roy Hession says, “Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts.” The imagery depicts us as those who must be low enough to receive what is poured out. To be made low, our will must be broken. We must know what it means to say, “not my will but yours be done,” and “not I, but Christ.” This is truly what is at the center of denying self.

How do we humble ourselves in this way? Hession goes on to write penetrating words about the self:

First of all, our proud self must be broken. Our own self must give up its rights. Our self is hard. It does not want to obey God. It likes to show that it is right. It wants to go its own way. It wants to claim all its rights. It always seeks glory for itself. The self must bow to God’s will. It must confess that it is wrong. It must give up it’s own way. It must obey the Lord Jesus. It must give up all its glory. Only in this way can the Lord Jesus have all and be all in our lives. We must die to self.

Lent is not a morbid denial of self, but rather a joyful discovery of Christ, who shows Himself in so many ways and places when we at last can see past ourselves.

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 18

It's Baked Goods Tuesday!

THE HUMILITY OF JESUS

Lent exposes my lack of humility, as any effort toward repentance does. I don’t want to admit my dependencies. I don’t want to hold my tongue. I don’t want to contemplate my selfish habits. Yet in the quietness of Lent, all these things come to the surface.

The 40 days of Lent parallels the 40 days that Jesus went without food in the wilderness. So one of the ways we identify with Jesus’ suffering is by giving up things. Whether its food or TV or gossip, we deny ourselves particular comforts and pleasures as a way of remembering what he endured.

Of course, our little sacrifices are symbolic at best of what Jesus surrender on our behalf. He gave up far more than food. He gave up his life. And still more than that, he gave up his seat at the right hand of God and condescended to become a man.

This is Jesus’ humility: He had nothing to gain; yet he gave up all he had.

I don’t know about you, but when I compare my life to this kind of humility, I see how self-protecting and self-promoting I can be. And this is why repentance begins with humility: Because even my repentance can be motivated by self-protecting fear and self-promoting pride.

Regarding fear, I turn from my ways because I dread consequence or loss of approval from others. Regarding pride, I tell myself that I need to turn from my ways because “I’m a good Christian, you know, a pastor even. I gotta’ stop lying or being lazy because I don’t want to be like the liars and slackers. I’m not like that.”

Natural repentance begins and ends in self. Spiritual repentance begins and ends in God.

This is why we give things up and devote more time to reflection during the Lenten season, because we are trying to make room in our lives for God to shed some light. And God will shed light into the dark corners, but that kind of light can only be received with humility.

So we look to Christ, who did not fear even in the face of death, and who did not act out of pride even though he was always right. His was a life of perfect humility.

SCRIPTURE READING: Philippians 2:1-8

CONTINUAL REPENTANCE

Are we still talking about repentance? Yep. Lent forces us to contemplate and wrestle with these things so we may identify with the depths of Christ's humanity (soon we will celebrate the heights of His glory). What we must embrace this season, and always, is that repentance is not merely a concept. It is a lifestyle.

Bob had some good thoughts on this last year, and what do you know, they're still pretty good:

The prophet Joel warned Israel to "rend your heart, not your garments" (Joel 2:13). The Apostle Paul differentiated between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow: "the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Cor 7:11).

The key to true repentance is that it always terminates on Jesus. True repentance does not wallow in self-loathing or delight in self-flagellation. Rather, it allows an honest sense of my sinfulness to drive me toward the depth of Christ's mercy in the gospel. "For every one look at sin," said R. Murray McCheyne, "take ten looks at Christ."

Our community is often quick to embrace the "I'm a sinner" part of the gospel without quickly affirming the other part: "and Jesus is my only hope." The side-effect of this half-hearted gospel is that we end up simply excusing sin, not turning from it. Worldly sorrow leads to death/despair. Godly sorrow leads to salvation, because it points me toward Christ.

No one understood this more fully than the Puritans. And so I offer today this prayer from the collection of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision. May God use it to help us "repent of our repentance."

A LENTEN PRAYER:
O God of Grace,
Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute,
and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul,
clothing me with a bridegroom's robe, decking me with jewels of holiness.
But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;
my best prayers are stained with sin;
my penitential tears are so much impurity;
my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin;
my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance;
I need my tears to be washed;
I have no robe to bring to cover my sins,
no loom to weave my own righteousness.
I am always standing clothed in filthy garments,
and by grace am always receiving change of raiment,
for thou dost always justify the ungodly...

Grant me never to lose sight of
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Christ,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
the exceeding wonder of grace.

SCRIPTURE READING: Deuteronomy 10:12-22

SEARCHLIGHT

Questions from the last post:

• Where is the mysterious work of God in repentance?
• What is the dynamic of spiritual repentance that differentiates it from natural penitence?

Last year, Evan had this to say about repentance:

“My struggle with repentance starts at knowing myself well enough to see what I should repent of … I wonder if the work of God in one's repentance is illumination, the light on the path, the writing in the sand.”

If you are observing Lent – denying usual comforts, reorienting your life in some way around the things of God – then isn’t this your prayer? “God, illuminate my path! Search my heart and test my anxious thoughts. Shed light on my dark ways. I want a clear picture of what my life is about, and where it is headed. How will I turn from my ways if I cannot see them?”

When we feel the pains of hunger, the habitual desire to watch TV, the consuming desire to buy something, our thoughts turn here: “Search me, O God.”

That God is the one who beckons and arouses the repentance is what makes it spiritual and not natural. Natural repentance is aroused by fear or pride. Regarding fear, I turn from my ways because I dread consequence or loss of approval from others. Regarding pride, I tell myself that I need to turn from my ways because “I’m a good Christian (a pastor, even). I must stop doing this because I don’t want to be like the kind of person who does this. I’m not like that.”

Self-protection and self-worship ride in the Trojan horse of repentance all the time. And you simply will not see it unless God shows it to you. Oh God, search me! Every dark corner and every hidden place.

How does God search and test and illuminate? God has many instruments, I suppose, but we must begin with the sharpest one, “sharper than any double-edged sword … dividing soul and spirit … judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Word of God is “a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.”

This is why a greater devotion to the Bible is a good idea during the Lenten season. When we give up something, we make a clearing in our lives, but unless the clearing is illuminated, we walk around in the dark.


A LENTEN PRAYER
Creator of heavens and earth,
Speak light into our immeasurable darkness.
Expose the chaos of our steps
And bring order to our lives.

Light of the World, full of grace and truth,
Open the kingdom of heaven to us.
Tell us what you hear and see
And give us ears and eyes.


SCRIPTURE READING: Psalm 119

Get Some People Baptized!

A few weeks ago we gathered at Montclair Community Center to celebrate some folks in our community getting baptized. Baptism is a sign and seal of: union with Christ, initiation into God’s family, and cleansing from the guilt and defilement of sin. Here are some pictures from the night...

Sackcloth & Exile

Because repentance is a major theme during Lent, it is helpful to distinguish between terms like confession, remorse, and repentance. And between words like desire and action. Sometimes a certain aspect of an idea becomes the meaning of the idea itself in our minds. Regret or admission can pass as repentance, and likewise a show of desire can defraud repentance of true fruit.

This short-changing of repentance is part of our heritage. What we experience on an individual level was prevalent on a national scale with Israel. Naymond Keathley explains in the Holman’s Bible Dictionary:

In ancient Israel repentance was first expressed corporately. When national calamities such as famine, drought, defeat, or a plague of locusts arose, the people did not feel responsible individually for these catastrophes. Rather, they sensed that the incidents were caused by the guilt of the nation. All shared the responsibility and, consequently, the ritual of repentance. Fasting, the wearing of sackcloth (the traditional attire for mourning), the scattering of ashes, and the recitation of prayers and psalms in a penitential liturgy characterized this collective experience of worship.

It was an elaborate remorse, but not always relational in nature. Keathley continues:

With the use of such outward tokens of repentance, however, the danger of sham or pretense also arose. Ritual not accompanied by a genuine attitude of repentance was empty. Against such misleading and, therefore, futile expressions of remorse, the prophets spoke out. Their attacks upon feigned worship and their calls for genuine contrition on the part of the individual gave flower to the characteristic biblical concept of repentance. What was needed was not ritual alone, but the active involvement of the individual in making a radical change within the heart and in seeking a new direction for one's life. What was demanded was a turning from sin and at the same time a turning to God. For the prophets, such a turning or conversion was not just simply a change within a person; it was openly manifested in justice, kindness, and humility.

The term used extensively by the Prophets – shubh – means “to turn” or “return”. So the idea of returning from exile is in view. John the Baptist was cut from the same fabric as the prophets. He called his own generation to make a radical turn in the direction of their lives by pointing them to the soon-coming Messiah. Life as usual is crooked. Right side up is upside down. Make room for the straight path of Jesus.

So where does that get us? In repentance there is an apprehension of where we are (and are not), a feeling of regret that we ended up here, a decision that we will change course, and an act of the will to do so.

Hmmm, that sounds mechanistic. I mean, that defines repentance technically, but where is the mysterious working of God in this? What is the dynamic of spiritual repentance that differentiates it from natural penitence? And more practically, how do we get from regret over my sin to true repentance?”


Scripture Reading: Hosea 11 (and 12-13 if you are up for it).

It's Baked Goods Tuesday!

A Communal Affair

I don't think Lent should be observed in isolation. We have much to learn from each other, and much to give to one another as well.

So, how are you observing Lent? What are you learning in the process ... about God, about you? How is your awareness of God and dependence upon Him growing, even in the little things of the day? What kinds of dependencies and comforts and consumer habits are surfacing in your life?

One of the ways I am observing Lent is to give up TV and talk radio (I fill my life with so much noise). Already I've noticed how habitually and mindlessly I turn these things on. I catch myself several times a day as I reach for the power button. It's forcing me to listen to God during those times, which is not as easy of course, but the best things in life aren't easy.

What about you?

A LENTEN PRAYER (which can be found here)
For sins which we ourselves have committed and for sins of omission,
for sins of our hands and sins of our hearts,
for the hurt we have caused you and our neighbors through ignorance or indifference,
We ask your forgiveness

For failure to see your image in someone who is different,
We ask your forgiveness

For putting our own welfare and social comfort above the basic needs of others,
We ask your forgiveness

For our reluctance to get involved,
We ask your forgiveness

For being grateful that we are in some way superior to another,
We ask your forgiveness

For teaching that it is better to receive than to give,
We ask your forgiveness

For the failure of your Church to be light in the darkness,
We ask your forgiveness

SCRIPTURE READING: Hosea 14

Beginning With The End In Mind

The Lenten season is now in flight, and there are perhaps a few groups of people at this point: latecomers, early goers, and those who are neither here nor there.

Latecomers
If Lent were a party, you just walked in the door and aren’t quite sure what has already been said and done. Part of you wants to blend in like you know what you are doing, and part of you wonders if you should just go home and try to make it on time next year. Good news for you: The Lent party is a gospel party! The gospel of Jesus does not discriminate against when or how you got here. It only beckons you to come as you are.

What should you do now that you are here? Read the last few Lent posts to get a feel for things. When you feel somewhat prepared, dive in wherever we are in our readings and meditations and begin denying and practicing whatever you have decided upon for the Lenten season.

Early Goers
If Lent were a race, you are starting to lose energy. You began with enthusiasm, but you have already forgotten at times what you are supposed to be doing, or you may simply feel defeated by how well everyone else seems to be doing. Good news for you: You are worse than you think! You have been set free from “performing Lent”. Indeed, the very thing that Lent beckons us to consider is the death of Jesus, in whom all of our unfaithfulness and shame was condemned once for all, so that we may breathe easy in the company of God’s family.

What should you do if you have already strayed? Get back on course. Repent of making Lent about what you do or don’t do (or what other people do) and run to the cross where “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3).

Those Who Are Neither Here Nor There
You are neither here (late) nor there (gone). You are running with the pack, fully present at the party. Good news for you: The gospel is deeper and fuller than you ever imagined! "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:1-2)."

This is what Lent is about: Joining the company of God’s people to consider Jesus’ suffering and death; denying and cleansing ourselves so that we may run straighter and stronger; gaining vision and strength from the faithfulness of God in Christ Jesus. Wherever you are today – behind, astray, on course – fix your eyes on Jesus, our brave frontrunner and generous host.

Beauty is Objective

Gene Edward Veith is a wise professor who also serves as a writer on worldview and culture for WORLD magazine. In WORLD's most recent issue, he wrote a very interesting and insightful piece on beauty as an absolute.

The article is posted below. If I'm breaking any rules by posting it here, I will repent... but just to cover my #*@, y'all should consider subscribing to WORLD. It is an excellent news magazine written from a Christian worldview by top-notch scholars and writers.

Acquired taste: Beauty is more than in the eye of the beholder | Gene Edward Veith

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine; February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

Christians have to battle the mindset that insists "there are no absolutes." But Christians often do not realize what the absolutes are that they need to defend. The classic thinkers spoke of three kinds of absolutes: the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Often, Christians reject the claims that truth and morality are relative while agreeing with the postmodernists that beauty is relative. But to think that beauty is nothing more than a subjective preference—unconnected to standards that originate in God Himself—is to buy into a foundational principle of today's anti-Christian worldview.

The Bible tells us to set our minds on "whatever" is "excellent" and "of good report" (Philippians 4:8). Beauty does involve personal taste, but our tastes need discipline. Growing in taste means learning to take pleasure in what is objectively good.

Consider this principle from Aesthetics 101: A work is beautiful to the extent that it displays at the same time both complexity and unity.

In painting a black canvas has unity, but it has no complexity. A canvas of random paint-splatterings may have complexity, but it has no unity. The Sistine Chapel, or a Rembrandt woodcut, or a Hudson River landscape has both, being full of individual details that come together into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Pop music typically consists of no more than three chords in a simple melody with simple lyrics. Not much is going on. Contrast that with a hymn (whether traditional or contemporary): It consists of many different musical notes for different voices, all coming together in the unity of harmony. Its lyrics, in turn, are packed with theology, figures of speech, biblical references, and emotions. The hymn is objectively better by aesthetic standards than the pop ditty. Even greater aesthetically is the symphonic composition in which every instrument is playing a different musical line yet all come together into a majestic unity.

There is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk food, though if all you eat is sugar and French fries, you will be malnourished. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk culture. But just as you need the nutrition found in a home-cooked meal, you need the cultural nutrition that comes from enjoying the best.

Taking subjective pleasure in what is objectively excellent takes knowledge and experience. Here is a practical suggestion: Play classical music. Not just any classical music, some of which is less accessible and an "acquired taste." Start with two composers: Bach and Mozart. Focus on their instrumental works, not the chorales or operas. Notice how their music is both complex and unified. Notice the pleasure it gives you.

Before too long, you will develop a taste for musical excellence. Then you can go from there into other kinds of aesthetic excellence.

Ash Wednesday Reflections

Considering all the build up in my mind regarding Lent, yesterday was disappointingly normal. I ate, worked, played basketball, worked on my house, and so on. Sure, there were moments of denial and resistance, but other than that, it was Wednesday like any other.

That’s okay. Life is usually normal, and spiritual formation is accomplished through very ordinary means. I say this to encourage you in case you do not feel extra spiritual during the Lenten season. You do not need to conjure up a solemn spirit and somber face to participate in Lent. If self-denial and repentance bring about such things, then embrace what the Spirit is doing in you. Be on your knees before God, and live your life before the face of God.

Delight in the little things: the denial of comforts, the ongoing repentance of thoughts and attitudes, a moment of savoring God’s Word, and especially the ways in which all these things turn your attention to the suffering and death of Christ.

The part of my day that was delightfully abnormal was our Ash Wednesday prayer service. We read Scriptures and prayers aloud, we confessed our burdens and distractions and sin aloud, we were marked with ashes as a sign of our mortality and humility, and we took communion to remember the suffering and death of Christ.

As we are now heading into the wilderness together, I invite you to share your reflections and experiences with the rest of us (click “comments” below to contribute)


A LENTEN PRAYER
O Lord our God, long-suffering and full of compassion: Be present with us as we enter this season in which we recall our Savior’s suffering and celebrate his triumph. Give us your holy Spirit, so that as we acknowledge our sins and implore your pardon, we may also have the strength to deny ourselves and be upheld during times of temptation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING: Psalm 38

Revolution! The Subculture is Dying

Anyone who is familiar with the writing of Walker and myself over the past 7 years (Kingdom of Couches, Postcards from Corinth, the Musings blog) knows that we have relentlessly bashed the Christian subculture - that culture within the culture that "[picks] up the major media's scraps and [glues] them back together with a cross on top" (quoted in Kingdom of Couches, p. 153). In light of our disdain for Christian-bookstore spirituality, we are celebrating a small victory for the gospel today. World Magazine reports that CCM magazine, a bastion of the Christian subculture, is going out of print next month.

CCM stands for "contemporary Christian music." The magazine has chronicled the major trends in "Christian" music for almost 3 decades. Though the death of the magazine's print version is being billed as a daring move into new media, those close to the situation confirm that CCM has been losing readership dramatically in recent years. The "Christian music" genre as a whole is in trouble due to the digital music revolution, the weak artistic value of commercialized Christian music, and the courage of talented major-label-shunning artists like Derek Webb who resent their art being pigeonholed into the "Christian" category. CCM the magazine has been caught in the whirlpool of a sinking genre. I can only hope other elements of the subculture are sucked under as well.

May the death of CCM mark the re-emergence of biblically thoughtful, culturally savvy, artistically excellent music. The tide is turning! I'm off to go listen to some Sufjan.

Ash Wednesday

Today is the first day of Lent, and I know some of you are still trying to figure out what to do. My advice is: start simple.

Pick out one thing you can sacrifice as a way of entering into the wilderness with Jesus. Don’t worry about whether or not your sacrifice is a good one. It’s not a contest. Just make your aim to know Christ more fully, and trust him to lead you. Seek to replace that thing with devotion to Christ – his Word and his mission. God may lead you to give up and take up more as you go. That’s good. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.

To help you focus your attention on God, I will be posting Scripture readings and prayers. Below is the first of these, but first let me highlight a few thoughts as we enter into this season:

• The Lenten season is a time of preparation and repentance in which we make our hearts ready for remembering Jesus’ passion and celebrating Jesus’ resurrection.
• During Lent, we deny usual comforts as a means to deepen our sense of union with Jesus, and to re-orient our life around the things of God. We give up that which distracts and entangles us so we may consider our strategy for living, and we take up practices that will help us love Jesus with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• When considering what to give up, begin with whatever habits or things lie at the heart of your consumer lifestyle. Forsake them for the sake of being consumed by the God-life.
• Whatever your sacrifice or discipline this season, let it be one of faith and not mere ritual or a source of pride. Lent is not about what we do for Christ. It is about plumbing the depth of what he has done for us.

A Lenten Prayer
God of love, as in Jesus Christ you gave yourself to us, so may we give ourselves to you, living according to your holy will. Keep our feet firmly in the way where Christ leads us; make our mouths speak the truth that Christ teaches us; fill our bodies with the life that is Christ within us. In his holy name we pray. Amen. (from the Worship Sourcebook)


Scripture Reading: Psalm 51, Joel 2:12-18

It's Baked Goods Tuesday!

Preparing for Lent (Giving up and Taking Up)

Giving up a habit or a food or a pleasure is not distinctly Christian. People give up things all the time in the name of self-help, or worse, vanity and vengeance. The point of Lent is not merely sacrifice, but also repentance. Our aim is to reorient life God-ward, and this reorientation has to do with desert and wilderness.

A “wilderness experience” in our language usually means one has been gone for a while and has returned with new insight or perspective ... “a new lease on life.” People who have been to second or third world countries often speak of how different their viewpoint is now – how sickened they are by materialism and excess, how heavy their hearts are for the injustices of our world, and how lonely they are in a world of people who don’t see.

Or perhaps someone has been on multi-day hike in the mountains, and something about the still mountain air jolted their footing in life. In either case, what happens is that people are stripped of their usual comforts, removed from the safety of familiarity, and are forced to see the world from a different vantage point (our lives are so small, which is nearly impossible to see from where we stand).

Something like a wilderness experience is our aim during the Lenten season. How far into the wilderness should we go?

• Far enough that when we reach for our usual comforts, and grasp a fistful of air, we are forced to cling to Christ – His body, His blood.
• Far enough that we begin to see just how upside our world really is.
• Far enough to see that our “important things” are actually perishable goods, and that our “busy” lives simply lack wisdom.
• Far enough to see the layers of “self” beneath our "righteousness".

I want a new leash on life, a view into the vast world of God, a deep breath and long look above the tree line of self-absorption. So in Lent we focus on getting away from the life of flesh and into the life of the Spirit, denying our ways and embracing God’s.

I intend to give up some things, not in a way that just makes me think more about those things (of how I miss them), but rather in a way that awakens me to how much I miss God and desire his life-giving Spirit. This means, of course, that Lent is not only about giving up things. It is also about adding things, God-things.

• Having given up junk food for a healthy diet, what will you do with the energy you gain?
• Having given up reading magazines, what will you read now?
• Having given up e-mail, to whom will you devote meaningful conversation?
• Having given up lunch, how will you rely on God for the strength of “food from heaven”?
• Having given up TV as a default activity, how will you use that time to cultivate quality family time?
• Having given up isolation, how will you immerse yourself in community?
• Having given up shopping, will you see those who need clothing in our city?
• Having sacrificed whatever form of selfishness you indulge, to whom will you pay attention now?

Lent is upon us (tomorrow). How are you going to reorient your life this season? What will you give up? What will you add? Don’t get trapped by legalism or guilt or ambitious self-righteousness. Just think about the stuff in your life that distracts and clutters and entangles you. What are the habits or things that lie at the heart of your consumer lifestyle? Forsake them for the sake of being consumed by the God-life.


* Ash Wednesday prayer service tomorrow night. E-mail if you need directions (will@cdomaha.com).

Preparing for Lent

"Lent will be this wonderful season of grace for us if we give ourselves to it. And, we will give ourselves to it to the degree we really want it badly. So, in these days before Lent, we need to prepare our hearts. We need to prepare by realizing how much we want to grow in freedom, how much we need to lighten our spirits and experience some real joy, and how much some parts of our lives really need changing." (from the Online Ministries, Creighton University).

Lent begins in two days (Ash Wednesday). You could, of course, just decide that you are not going to drink Coke (soda pop?) for forty days and be done with it, but that would be to deprive yourself of far more than Coke. You would miss something that God wants to do in you this season.

The first matter of preparation is to understand the purpose of Lent. The Lenten season is a time of preparation and repentance in which we make our hearts ready for remembering Jesus’ passion and celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. The purpose is not merely an extended meditation on Christ’s suffering and death, but is rather a season to explore and deepen our sense of union with Christ.

The forty day period is symbolic of "repentance seasons" in the Bible:

• The great flood to cleanse the world lasted 40 days (Genesis 7:4)
• The Israelites wandered 40 years in the desert traveling to the Promised Land
• Moses stayed on the mountain of God and fasted for 40 days (Exodus 24:18)
• Nineveh was given 40 days to repent (Jonah 3:4)
• Jesus spent 40 days praying and fasting in the wilderness prior to undertaking his ministry (Matthew 4:2)

A major focus during Lent is repentance, a term which often gets confused with other terms. Tod Bolsinger, pastor of San Clemente Presbyterian Church, offers some clarity on the issue.

Many of us are confused about repentance. Some of us think of it as “penance,” that is, atoning for our sins with acts of contrition. But that is not repentance. We can’t atone for what we have done and need not try. Jesus’ work on the cross is our atonement. Some of us think of repentance as sorrow and shame for what we have done, but that is also inaccurate ... the bible has a different Greek word for sorrow. Repentance is literally to “change your mind.” In the famous words of Dallas Willard, “To reconsider your strategy for living based on the news of God’s Kingdom that is available in Jesus.” And that is what Lent is for, to reconsider your strategy for living. To begin a new process of deep consideration and reflection about your life. To reconsider what it means to follow Jesus, to plumb the mystery of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To reconsider what your strategy for living should be, based on this good news.

So give up Coke if you want to, but don't pretend that the absence of a beverage will sufficiently help you repent and draw near to God.

The second matter of preparation is to consider how you will observe Lent this season. The articles below are helpful toward that end. If you are thinking you don't have time to read all of this, then you are beginning to get a feel for what Lent will require of you.


Honest to God
An insightful article that gets you "in the mood" for Lent. Very insightful reflection as we consider our heart attitudes as we approach Lent.

Giving Up Neglecting God
This article draws from the writings of St. Benedict to help us practice ways of paying more attention to God during Lent. These are practical suggestions for (re)structuring your life in ways that allow you to set your mind more wholly on God.

Preparing for Lent
This is a good article on preparing for Lent in the days leading up to it. I will make this disclaimer regarding this artcile, as well as the rest of the Creighton Collaborative Ministiries resources on Lent: Read with discernment. I am not on board, theologically speaking, with everything on this website. But I have found the authors to be insightful and thoughtful people. You will find a few treasures as you dig through various the links and articles.

What Actor Should Play Jesus?

This part just got cut out of my sermon for tomorrow, but I thought it would be a fun blog debate.

If each of the gospels were made into a movie, who would play the part of Jesus? Here are my votes... I'd love to hear yours.

Gospel of Matthew: Morgan Freeman as Jesus. Why? Matthew centers around Jesus' teaching (think Sermon on the Mount). You want a Jesus character whose voice is soothing yet commanding. Who can deliver lines with perfect timing and accuracy. Who has academic-style intellectual prowess, yet speaks in ways that resonate with the common man... the kind of actor whose voice hooks you and scares you at the same time.

Gospel of Mark: that's for the sermon tomorrow. You'll find out.

Gospel of Luke: Denzel Washington. Luke emphasizes Jesus' interactions with people from every stripe of society: rich, poor, slave, free, religious, irreligious, young, old, male, female. So the actor has to be an "everyman" Jesus - someone who incarnates the best of all different kinds of people. A man whom everyone can see themselves in.

Gospel of John: Nicholas Cage. John, written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved," shows us much of Jesus' personal, affective side. We need an actor who is manly and strong, yet warm, affectionate, and accessible - the kind of man we could see hugging his disciples, comforting the woman at the well, or grieving in the garden of Gethsemane.

What do you think?

Introducing: The Gospel of Mark

In February we dive into the Gospel of Mark, both in our Sunday morning preaching and in missional community gatherings. After a year and a half hiking the Himalayas of gospel theology in Romans, we turn now to a book introducing us to the person at the heart of the gospel: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I have written a short introduction to the Gospel of Mark that covers some of the background issues: author, genre, major themes, results of recent scholarship, etc. I'd encourage all of you to read it in order to be prepared to interact with the text in a thoughtful and meaningful way.

Introduction to Mark