My message at the Ash Wednesday service this year was, “Do it. Now. Pray, repent, engage in ministry, experience God’s life. This life is much richer when we put our spiritual lives first. Not always easier, but much more centered and rich with meaning.”
And here we come to the end of this week’s passage, and I see that’s pretty much what Jesus saying. (What, did I think I made it up?) “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ “
That one sentence contains everything we need to focus on during Lent – and the rest of our lives as Christ-followers. We are to proclaim the Good News that the Kingdom of God has come near. We are to live in the Already – the time is fulfilled! We are to repent of the ways we fail to live in the fullness of that message, and we are to believe in the Good News. Proclaim it, live it, repent, and believe it.
I said the other day that Ash Wednesday is kind of a threshold to lead us into Lent. Lent too is a kind of threshold time, an antechamber if you will, to lead us into the greater mystery and promise of Easter life. And this life we inhabit in this world, embodied, governed by time and the laws of nature – this life is also a threshold time, a foyer, an antechamber – to lead us into the Life we will enjoy for eternity with God. That’s the Good News we have to proclaim – that that Life begins here and now, in this life, as we open ourselves to it.
Why advocate a practice of repentance? Because big parts of us are not on board with entering that Life God invites us into. We fear too much will be asked of us, it's too hard to pin down, we can't see it. But we don't repent to feel bad about ourselves. Repentance is about inviting our whole selves to join into the movement toward God.
And why stress believing? Because we’re more convincing when we talk about things we believe in. There is always room in belief for questions and doubts – but we don't have to give them a lot of space or make up a bed for them.
No one can get another person to put God first. All we can do is call out from our own place on the path, “Hey, the view’s pretty good over here. Come walk with me a ways.” That’s why clergy always want their congregants to participate in everything, all the time – not to make us feel good, but because we’ve found satisfaction in shifting our center God-ward and we want that for everyone.
Lent is a time to walk intentionally so that we might find our center shifting… and then we’ll want to stay on that path all the way to its End.
Note: At Christ the Healer this Lent we are focusing on experiencing God in different ways, and exploring spiritual practices that might help us make more space for God. I've created "Pilgrims Journals" for everyone with different exercises each week. I'm also doing an online version - if you want to join in, here's the first installment, with some questions for preparation. On Sunday I'll post a link to next week's exercise. This is a google form, which means I would see your responses. To make it private, I think you can open this link and copy the form, creating a new doc that would be your own. I think....! Try it...
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