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

Devotion For Ash Wednesday: Lent Day 1

Good Morning and a Blessed, Holy Ash Wednesday to all of you. If you are anywhere near the Upper Valley of NH, we welcome you to join us this evening at 6:00PM for a soup supper and a Service of Holy Communion at 7:00PM. We are located at 96 Main St. in Enfield NH. Today will begin the first in a series of devotions for all the days of Lent. These devotions have been written by various members of the Community Lutheran Church in Enfield NH.

May these devotions enrich your spiritual practices during this deeply meditative season of Lent.

Lenten Reflection for Day 1

Date: Wednesday March 9

Author: Pastor Pat Harris

Bible Passage:

Matthew 11:28–30 (NRSV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Reflection:

Following Jesus is not always easy. Today, on Ash Wednesday, it can seem particularly difficult to be a disciple or follower of Jesus. People around us are going about their usual business, perhaps thinking of spring or maybe a trip to a warmer climate. As Christian, we realize that this day is the beginning of Lent, a time when we especially recall that we have been baptized into both Jesus’ life and death. In many churches today, followers of Christ will receive ashes on their foreheads with the words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.” Instead of thinking about spring on this Ash Wednesday, we are encouraged to consider our mortality and reflect on how we will spend this mortal life. The Lenten season is a time for reflection, prayer, penitence and serving our neighbor.

What’s easy about being a follower of Jesus and following the discipline of Lent? How can Jesus say that his yoke is easy? Being a disciple of Jesus is life changing. It changes your priorities and can change your life direction. Sometimes these changes do seem hard. Yet Jesus guides with a gentle hand, leading and encouraging. And God’s grace in Jesus is where you can find the promised rest for your soul. Whatever else is happening to you, you know that God gives you the promise of forgiveness, and new life after this mortal life is over.

Those heavy burdens you are carrying—even the seeming weight of the so-called Lenten discipline—bring them to Jesus in prayer. When you receive those ashes on your forehead and the reminder of your mortality, remember those who have been baptized into Jesus’ life and death are also baptized into his resurrection. This mortal life is not all there is—there is the promise of another brand new, shining life. Jesus’ yoke is indeed easy when the end result is considered. You will find rest for your soul. Thanks be to God.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, I ask first for your gentle yoke for myself to keep me in your ways. Keep reminding me that your yoke is light, when all things are considered. And then Lord, I pray for my friends and colleagues that they may come to know what your yoke means and may learn to follow you. Amen

Lent Begins!

Introduction:

Today is the first day of the forty day period we know as Lent. This day is known as Ash Wednesday. For the next 40 days (Sundays are not included), I will be posting a meditation. For the first week, the theme will be Confession, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. We will think and pray about what confession means to us, why it is a spiritual discipline and why confession is good for us. I look forward to sharing this Lenten time with you. I pray that these meditations may be a aid to your spiritual discipline during Lent.

Reflection for Lent Day 1: Ash Wednesday (February 17)

Theme for the Week: Confession, Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Passage for the Day: Daniel 9:3-4

³Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession.

Reflection:

Today, we enter Lent with Ash Wednesday. In my faith tradition, when we come to worship on Ash Wednesday, we are offered the opportunity to confess our sins and have ashes placed on our forehead. Among the various interpretations, ashes can be a sign of repentance, purification, mourning or even an acknowledgement of our mortality. In Old Testament times, people placed ashes on their foreheads as a sign of mourning and also as a sign of repentance. In the Scriptural passage which is the basis of this reflection, Daniel seeks God’s help by engaging in prayer and confession. As signs of his humble approach to God, he wears sackcloth, a dark, uncomfortable fabric made of goat hair, and he puts ashes on his body. When you have ashes placed on your forehead, what do they mean to you? For you, are the ashes a sign that you have been marked with the cross of Christ, the sign first placed on your forehead in baptism? Or are they a sign of your mortality, or a sign of your repentance?

Why do some faith traditions, such as the Lutheran Church, in which I serve, encourage worshippers to confess their sins, either with a group confession, personal reflection, or individual confession? In a confession of sins, we acknowledge before God that we have done things which have hurt ourselves or other people, or that we have failed to do things which would have helped someone else. We admit that we have not been able to live up to God’s full expectation for us. We don’t confess the things we have done wrong in order to make ourselves feel bad or to beat ourselves up. We confess so that God can restore us. God releases us from the torment of the things we have done wrong or neglected to do. God frees us from the power of wrong doing so that our lives can be turned around.

I like to think of the ashes on my forehead as a sign that God has purified and cleansed me. The words to a hymn that our choir is singing in worship tonight sum things up for me. (This song was written by Tony Alonso and produced by GIA Publications.) When I hear the choir sing “Sign us with ashes, merciful God. Sign us and make us your own,” I feel the ashes on my forehead and remember that that God loves me and forgives me. I remember that God has made me God's own in baptism. I look forward to the Lenten time as a way of reclaiming my identity as a baptized child of God.

Think about the ashes you might receive on your forehead and pray about what they could mean to you and what God’s action in your life means.

Prayer Themes for the Day

Pray for yourself that the Lenten season which begins today might be a time of reflection, repentance and reconciliation. Pray that you will be able to allow God to work in your life, releasing you from anything that is troubling or imprisoning you. Pray that in your confession and repentance, God will turn your life around.