Psyched for Lent!
Friends, strangers, and all the Christian ladies and gentlemen, get ready, get set, we have raced off into the season of lent! This season is so deep, so moving, and so inspiring. It really gets us prepared for Easter Sunday right around the corner.
Lent is a very powerful season, or at least it should be. Lent is a time that builds us up through holy week to the great celebration of Jesus' resurrection on Easter morning. As Advent prepares us for Christmas, we should be getting ready right now during Lent for Easter. Yet our culture doesn't think so.
Unlike the Advent season where businesses can't wait to get us excited about Christmas Day, Lent seems to be mostly ignored outside of the church. Repentance, fasting, charity work and giving doesn't quite fit into a secular culture that teaches us to never take the blame, eat-eat-eat, and buy-buy-buy.
Yet Lent is so freeing. During Lent, we gather with powerful conviction that, "All have sinned and fall short of God's glory" (Romans 3:23, CEB). We aren't expected to put up a front, but instead are welcomed into being humbly human together.
Lent is so nurturing. In this time we awaken our awareness of the eternal life before us. In fasting, as we pray, our relationship with God grows and we become spiritually filled with confidence that God's eternal promises have already begun.
Lent is so engaging. Together we are invited to be involved in helping out others, to participate in charity and giving to those in need. Those who have volunteered or given alms know the incredible rewarding feeling of getting the chance to participate in God's work on earth.
Enjoy taking this freeing, nurturing, engaging, and overall life-strengthening journey this time of year. You are invited to come be encouraged on your walk at Williston Presbyterian Church's Lenten Evening Music & Worship services tonight (Feb. 27) and March 13 at 6:30 p.m.