Category: Lent

The Apostle Paul lays out the vision of the Christian life in a thorough pastoral theology. In his writings, he speaks tenderly as a shepherd who understands the human condition like no other. Suffering: check. Joy: Check. Political adversaries: check. Thorn in the flesh: Check. A powerful conversion experience: Check. Persecuting Christians: Check. An incomparable intellectual resume: Check. Everything is there.

This opens the door for the apostle to speak authoritatively on the stages of the Christian experience. For Paul, a one-sided theology is doomed. If everything is chuckles and champaign, then it doesn’t rightly reflect the Christian practice. The Christian experience is not only Easter-tide but Lenten-tide. Man does not live on thrills alone but on the crucified experience also.

Paul develops a pastoral theology that puts before us the joys and sorrows of the Christian life. Lent is essential because it reminds us of the humility of Christ and our call to put on repentance. Lent is necessary because without sorrow and without grief and without the experience of brothers and sisters in mutual consolation, we form an over-idealized Christian life, and consequently, we create a vision that is unrealistic and unfruitful.

We Lent this morning as we confess our sins and kneel before our God. Before we arise in the glory-hope of the absolution, we must first taste the ashes of death. Come, receive life after death in Christ Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience…”

Impatience stems from thinking that everything and everyone needs to follow a great script written by you and when people don’t follow the script as you wrote, then you are justified to show a director’s fury.

But you see, you don’t write the script for your children and friends. God is the director of our lives. His script for our lives is from everlasting. And when we rush to anger with our fellow actors and actresses, we are acting as if we are self-creators of our own stories. We are supplanting God’s function in our stories as the great writer. On the other hand, patience treats others with the dignity of fellow travelers in this great cosmic narrative.

To accept one another as fellow protagonists in God’s story is to let love cover a multitude of sins, and at times to rebuke those who sin. Patience is a call to wisdom as we accept the humanity of others, but also manifest our Christian witness before the world. God writes, and we perform as image-bearers, but performing is always an act of grace best served in the meal of patience.

Prayer: O Blessed Lord, you showed patience throughout your earthly life. You overthrew tables when it was necessary and you showed care to the least of these always. Your heart is a heart of blessed patience with those whom you’ve chosen. Grant us the gift of waiting for you, and grant us the gift of seeing our brothers and sisters as fellow travelers in our great journey through God’s theater. We pray this through Christ our Lord, amen.

God is for us because of the cross of Jesus. “He is for us!” Say those words out loud today. Like a father is for his child; like a mother who praises her daughter; like a satisfied teacher with his student; yes, in those ways, but so much more. He is for us even though it cost the life of his very Son. He is for us even though it would shake the very universe he created. He is for us even though we were not for him: while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

To answer Paul’s rhetorical question, nothing! There is nothing to say to these things. God’s glorious grace made us new. His electing love justified us and now we have nothing to say, except to boast on that glorious tree all our days. God is for us in the cross of Jesus!

Prayer: Our Father, you did not spare your own Son for us but delivered him up for our salvation. We cannot answer you for our words would be too shallow to compare to the glories of your wisdom and power. But alas, we answer with our lives by serving you all our days in the knowledge that you are for us in Jesus Christ our Lord, amen!

Mark 15:21: Simon from Cyrene happened to be coming in from a farm, and they forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.

To live crucified lives is to live the life of Simon of Cyrene who was compelled to bear the cross and later joined the mission of the Kingdom. Our calling sometimes comes in unexpected ways and times. And when it does come, you do not need to be perfect to carry it, but we must be willing to seek out the Son of God and be where he is. We are to bow before the cross in order to bear it.

It is true that our hearts do not willingly submit to that blessed cross. Sometimes we are first compelled to bear it before we humbly desire its beauty and grace. Bearing the cross is no easy task. It is draining, tiring, and exhausting. Fathers and mothers, and friends know how hard it is to serve one another in the Name of Jesus when the cross comes at inconvenient times; when the future is uncertain. But it’s precisely at such times when this call makes the Lenten journey so compellingly engaging. We may not always want the cross, but no one has ever regretted a cruciform life.

Lent drains our dependence on self and calls us to look to Another for aid. As Watts so powerfully reminds us:

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Prayer: Merciful Father, I feel hopeless and helpless and your cross seems always too hard and heavy to bear. But beneath your cross is the only refuge I have. Give me a willingness to follow after you and seek the joys of your blessed tree through your holy name, amen.

Hymn of the Day: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

On this 17th day of Lent, we are called to eat the right things. The meal of the wicked is often decorated with delicious appetizers. At times, we salivate over it because our flesh seeks for a table outside our Father’s house. But in the end, we become what we eat and we will be more thoroughly equipped to fight sin when we remember that the table of evil is never ultimately satisfying.

In C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Edmund was easily seduced to betrayal because he could not control his appetite. He chose a gift from the evil one over the protection of his own family. Lutheran writer, Marva Dawn, summarizes brilliantly: “Always its pleasure will turn to dust in our mouths.” The biblical poet David says, “Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies.”

The Season of Lent is a call to eat at God’s table and to turn away all worldly delicacies. Lent is a call to fast from the wrong foods and eat the delicacies of Yahweh’s garden.

Prayer: O, Lord, may I increase in love for those things that flourish in my heart and soul rather than destroy the body and soul. Place in me an appetite for the bread and wine from heaven which gives life eternal through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Hymn of the Day: Bread of the World in Mercy Broken