Tag: ash wednesday

I Heart Lent

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As February days gradually lengthen, there is, even in the midst of winter, a hint of the promise of spring with its quickening of life after a winter-long slumber. Lent is a hopeful season of the church year which mirrors the promise of renewal seen in the natural world. During the forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, Christians reflect on God’s unconditional, sacrificial love and embrace the promise of eternal life.

crucifixion of christ

From The Life of Our Lord, published by Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, c.1880

The looming shadow of the cross at the end of this liturgical season is a tragic reminder of humanity’s timeless capacity for inhumanity. Yet it is also a triumphant reminder of the victory of life and love over death and hatred. Weekly Lenten scripture lessons remind us how God’s love transformed the cross – a symbol of shame, death, and punishment – into a potent symbol of grace, redemption, and hope. It is fitting that Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine’s Day this year for Lent reminds us of God’s love for us.

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

– 1st Letter of John, chapter 4, verse 10

Lent is also a perfect time to re-order our lives. From time to time all of us need to pause, take stock, and clear out that which is superfluous in order to make way for that which is truly essential. That goes not only for our stuff – our material possessions – but also for our sense of self, our value system, and our priorities. It’s all too easy to base our self-understanding on others’ views of us, our value system on that promoted by the culture around us, while we forget what is most important to our well-being in the face of daily demands on our time and attention.

Lenten spiritual disciplines of self-denial and meditation aim to make space in our hectic modern lives for God. Paradoxically, it is in surrendering ourselves to God and offering up our lives to Christ that we find our true selves. As Jesus once said, “… those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?”

I invite you to respond to God’s love during these forty days by thinking carefully about your
relationship with Christ.

  • What thoughts, words, and actions honor him?
  • What in your life is incompatible with being a follower of Jesus?

These questions are intended to promote self-awareness rather than guilt. May the insights you gain in pondering these questions inform your spiritual transformation and promote faithful action on Christ’s behalf.

Salutary Coincidence: Ash Wednesday & the Anniversary of the Moravian Church

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This year Ash Wednesday, a movable holy day which marks the beginning of Lent, falls on March 1st (2017) , which is the 560th anniversary of the organization of the Moravian Church. Both observances embody themes of repentance and personal recommitment to Jesus Christ.

ash wednesday

Ashes on our forehead remind us to turn away from behavior and patterns of thought which separate us from God or others. There is an element of urgency to our repentance for none of us know our length of life. As a token of mortality, ashes can also prompt us to consider our life as a whole. What will be our legacy? Will our presence on earth have made the world a better place for others or have amounted to little more than an extended exercise in self-gratification?

It seems to me that the founding of the Moravian Church in 1457 can also be interpreted as a collective act of repentance and recommitment by a group of believers who earnestly believed that Christ’s example and God’s grace made it possible for them to break free from the tangle of sinful behavior, injustice and oppression which characterized the society in which they lived. According to Gregory, an early Moravian leader:

“What made a Christian was not doctrine or what he or she believed, but that a person lived his or her life according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. He described these first Moravians as “people who have decided once and for all to be guided only by the gospel and example of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy apostles in gentleness, humility, patience, and love for our enemies.“ (Source)

The apostle Paul notes that offering our lives up to God “as a living sacrifice” is “true and proper worship.” Faith is more a matter of knowing God and following Jesus than it is knowing about God and Jesus.

The calendrical coincidence of Ash Wednesday and the anniversary of the Moravian Church is a timely reminder that there will always be a pressing need for repentance and recommitment to our Lord, Jesus Christ. The world, our nation, our communities and our congregation desperately need those who decide “to be guided only by the gospel and example of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy apostles in gentleness, humility, patience, and love for our enemies.”

March 1st is an invitation to recommit ourselves to being “Jesus people” as we reach out in the name of Christ to all persons but especially to those the Moravian Church has always felt called to seek – the world-weary, impoverished masses overlooked or rejected by others whether overseas or here in America. The Moravian Church’s history of mission is reflected in its current demographics with 39,150 of us in North America, 204,980 in the Caribbean and Latin America and 907,830 in Africa.

  • Pastor Derek French