What Is Lent?
What have you done this last week to observe
Lent?
Lent is a special opportunity to slow down and
listen. Have you been listening? Our ways of life
tend to become routine. Lent is essentially a season
of holy contemplation of the reality and mystery of
sin in the human heart and of the surpassing love of
God as revealed in the suffering and death of his only Son.
Originally Lent was meant to be a tithe of the year (36 days). This
included six days a week for six weeks (Sundays were not counted).
Eventually four days were added to remember the forty days Jesus spent
in the wilderness.
Lent is meant to be a time we set aside to grow closer with God. Lent is
also an appropriate time to study the Scriptures. The Bible helps us get
close to God's intentions for our lives. Our sermons on Sunday could be
labeled "What was God telling us."
The week following Palm Sunday we call "Holy Week" because it
climaxes the season, and fixes our eyes on the cross. It thus becomes
clear that the preaching and the meditations during the season of Lent
should not be centered on the suffering and death of Jesus, but on the
spirit of penitence before God which makes possible a correct
understanding of the meaning of Holy Week. Some churches do not
observe Lent but focus on Holy Week. But the question is whether we
understand Holy Week if we do not observe the need for penitence.
Lent is not the doing of penance for our sins, as if doing penance would
earn something for us. Christ has suffered for us, once for all, the just
for the unjust. We cannot do anything that has merit before God. But
we enter into a period of soul searching before God in a keener
awareness of our sin (falling short of God's intention) and our need of
His love and forgiveness.
Only then can shouting "HE IS RISEN!" bring joy to our hearts.
-Pastor Starkey
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