tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7998327570269363166.post5228986405123289982..comments2023-04-18T08:01:17.185-07:00Comments on Walking with Jesus: Lent: Why I'm ObservingAndreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11335594282345586379noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7998327570269363166.post-77604061899849489682012-02-25T12:36:03.564-08:002012-02-25T12:36:03.564-08:00To that I say, Amen! Thank you for sharing that w...To that I say, Amen! Thank you for sharing that with me Chris, <br />Yes, Lent is to be a somber time of remembering our own broken humanity, around us and within us. Though there is darkness and sorrow, we have an eternal hope, which is Christ. <br /><br />Lent is good, because I'm afraid we live in such a culture were we constantly get what we want, so we need times of self-denail. It's good for us.Andreahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11335594282345586379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7998327570269363166.post-680991969458462242012-02-24T09:57:37.605-08:002012-02-24T09:57:37.605-08:00Somebody asked me what Lent was and why I was givi...Somebody asked me what Lent was and why I was giving something up on my Facebook. I don't know if you saw my reply, but I figured you might want to if you hadn't. Here it is, in full:<br /><br />Lent is a season of repentance. It is a time where Christians look at their lives and say "I am not most important." It is specifically a time to realize your own shortcomings. It is a time to try to devote yourself to matters spiritual - prayer, devotions, more bible reading, etc, etc. <br /><br />We give up things (meat on Fridays, for example, or in my case, I'm giving up red meat for the entire 6 weeks) to remind ourselves, again, that I and my desires are not the most important things in life. I am asked to suffer, slightly, to better identify myself both with those who suffer in the world I live in (during Lent, our church service ends with "Go in peace, remember the poor" instead of the more typical "Go in peace, share the good news!") and with the suffering of Christ during the time around his crucifixion.<br /><br />The ash is a reminder, a very old one, that someday I will die. As it was put on my forehead (and really, pretty much what was said when anyone had ash put on their forehead) my pastor said "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." Death is something that, living in the modern world, we tend to shelter ourselves away from. A reminder, once a year, of my own mortality is probably healthy. <br /><br />The ashes put on my head were last year's palms from palm Sunday. What we used for celebration has been turned into sorrow. And this is the way that life goes. Joy melts into sorrow. People die. We are asked to die into Christ, the Christ who meets us in our sorrows and death, as he, too, knew sorrow and death. <br /><br />And yet. There is an end to the time of our sorrow, and that is in Easter morning, where we find that love conquers death and sorrow. As we have died in Christ, we rise with him, when death and sin find themselves subjected to love. <br /><br />The Saturday night Easter Vigil service may be my favorite church service of the year, because it carries us (in what is for me a shockingly short 2.5 hours) from darkness and sorrow into light and joy. <br /><br />But to get to that light and joy and life, and truly appreciate it, we have to first work our way through darkness and sorrow and death. <br /><br />And that's Lent.Chrisnoreply@blogger.com