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