Welcome to Lent

Introduction to the Season of Lent

This morning we begin Lent with a day of reflection, repentance and prayer that Christians refer to as Ash Wednesday. Most Christian communities gather for worship on this day, and in many churches, Community Lutheran Church among them, worshippers may receive a cross of ashes on their forehead. There is much symbolism associated with this cross of ashes. The cross reminds us both of Jesus's suffering for us and of our own baptisms, when a cross was traced on our foreheads, marking us as one of God's children. The use of ashes is both a sign of repentance and of regeneration. For millennia, God's faithful people have marked themselves with ashes as sign of their humbleness, regret for sins, and dependence on God. Ashes have also been used as a sign of mourning. But because we also use ashes to make fertilizer and soap, ashes are also a sign of cleanliness and new growth. If you choose to receive ashes on your forehead in worship today, in addition to confessing your sorrow at the things you have done wrong, remember that you have been baptized, that you belong to God, and that with God there is forgiveness and the opportunity, each day, to begin anew.

You can expect to see a daily Lenten devotion on this blogspace daily as we march toward Good Friday and Easter. Different members of the Community Lutheran Church fellowship will be authoring these devotions.

Lenten Reflection for Day 1—Ash Wednesday

Date: February 22, 2012

Author: Pastor Pat Harris

Bible Passage: Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NRSV)

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Reflection:

This passage is at the heart both Christian and Jewish beliefs and faith. Faithful Jews pray this passage daily as the “Shema”, which is the Hebrew word meaning “hear”. Jesus combines this quote with one from Leviticus to give us Jesus’ law of love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Coincidentally, this morning’s passage is also the theme for our midweek Lenten worship and reflection.

What does it look like to love the Lord with all your heart, soul and might? A love of the Lord that is this intense, means that loving the Lord is my first and top priority. One might even go so far as to say that it is my only priority. Love of this intensity and this focus may never be achievable for a flawed human being, but if we use this passage as a prayer, we are praying that focused love of the Lord would be the ideal that drives our lives.

If I love this Lord to this degree, then I don’t have room other kinds of self-destructive or harmful love. I don’t have time to love money or to let money drive my life. I don’t have time for ambition of any type to force my love of God to go back stage. I don’t have the energy to put a love of my possessions ahead of my love for God.

A full-hearted and mindful love of God is a devotion to God that makes me put God’s priorities and God’s laws ahead of anything else in my life.

Prayer:

Good and loving God, help me to love you in more ways and with more energy and commitment than I can imagine. Help me to put you first in my life. In your son Jesus’ name I pray. Amen