The Lenten Season of 2010 @ CiB
Hello, church family!
Welcome to Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Season of
2010. If you’re available, our Ash Wednesday service is Feb. 17th at 7pm
in the Chapel. It’s a short, simple service to celebrate and mark the
beginning of Lent.
Sunday, February
21st, begins our Sunday morning Lenten series focused on the
person of Jesus the Christ. Jesus is a complicated and complex figure in
both religious and historical views, and of course, Christ is not really
his last name. Christ is the ultimate title and designation of who Jesus
is, who he came into the world to become. In some ways, Jesus was born
and then Christ was made manifest in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus. He is Jesus the
Christ, or “Christ Jesus” as Paul often calls him.
Through the five Sundays of Lent leading us to Palm
Sunday and Easter Sunday we are going to look at this man Jesus as he
moves through his roughly three years of public life and ministry. We’ll
take some time to contemplate Jesus as a Teacher,
as a Companion,
as a Healer,
as a Jew,
and finally as the promised Messiah.
Hopefully this walk with Jesus over the next five
Sundays will help prepare each of us for the experience of Palm Sunday,
a look back at when the city of Jerusalem threw open her arms to Jesus,
and when we are reminded of our own moves toward making Jesus welcome
with us. We will commemorate Holy Week with a Good Friday Pilgrimage at
the church building to remind us of the tragedy of Christ’s death.
Finally, we’ll gather on Easter Morning to celebrate the New Life of
Christ, and our New Life in the Light of the World.
Have you chosen a fast for the
Lenten Season? You
might start it this morning or tonight after the Ash Wednesday Service.
You might begin it with a simple prayer this afternoon as you break from
the workday for lunch. Personally, I’m falling back on a well-worn habit
of fasting from meat for the Lenten Season. The new thing for me this
year is that I’m really putting an effort into fasting
to my practice of
meditation on Christ, my actual time set aside for contemplating our
Lord and what it means to draw near to him.
Just remember that this
is not a contest or competition for
Christian discipline. We were not created to serve the Lenten Season,
but the Lenten Season was dreamed and made a tradition to serve us, just
as Jesus himself spoke of God’s Law concerning the Sabbath. (Mark
2:23-28) If your soul is drawn to make this journey, then simply make a
move. There’s no right or wrong, better or worse in this effort, there’s
only a human soul reaching for the God who has been proclaimed to be
Love: love for us and
all people.
Here’s the Sunday lineup for
the coming weeks…
Sunday Feb. 21, Jesus the Teacher
Sunday Feb. 28, Jesus the Companion
Sunday Mar. 7, Jesus the Healer
Sunday Mar. 14, Jesus the Jew
Sunday Mar. 21, Jesus the Messiah
Sunday Mar. 28, Palm Sunday
Friday, Apr. 2, Good Friday Pilgrimage
Sunday Apr. 4, Easter Sunday
A beautiful passage for beginning our Lenten Season is found with the
prophet Joel, chapter two, verses twelve and thirteen...
"Even now," declares
the LORD,
"return to me with all your heart,
with
fasting and weeping and mourning.
Rend your heart and not your
garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity."
Amen.
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