Getting Right with God - Lent 2023

Entering into the Lenten season that leads us to Good Friday and Easter.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, named for a tradition where the church gathers to receive the mark of a cross on the forehead made with ashes. Genesis 3:19 says, “you are dust and to dust you will return.” Ash Wednesday reminds us of our humanity and our mortality: that we are not God. This action also acknowledges our sinfulness, connecting us to an Old Testament tradition where people would cover themselves in ashes to express mourning and repentance over sin.

Ash Wednesday is six and a half weeks before Easter. The six and a half weeks of Lent are a pathway to the foot of the cross on Good Friday where Jesus died the death we deserve for our sin and to his resurrection three days later on Easter Sunday. During Lent, we recognize our desperate need for Jesus to be our representative and substitute whose atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for our salvation. 

During Lent, people usually ask this particular question to themselves or others: What are you giving up for Lent? This can tend to be the focus of Lent. But there is a purpose behind giving something up for Lent and if all we do is give something up, then we have missed what Lent is about. Ruth Haley Barton describes Lent as an invitation to return to God. She says the real question of Lent is: How will I find ways to return to God with all my heart? This, she says, brings up another question: Where in my life have I gotten away from God and what are the disciplines that will enable me to find my way back 

Ruth Haley Barton suggests that during Lent, we practice the discipline of abstinence or fasting to help us clear out clutter that distracts us from God: TV, social media, certain types of food or drink (e.g. fast food, caffeine, sugar), etc. The question is: what has pulled me away from God, distracted me from God, or become a replacement for God in my life? During Lent, there are 40 days of fasting (the 6 Sundays within Lent are days where you can break your fast). In these 40 days, we imitate Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness when his devotion to God was tested. We too take this time to "test" our devotion to God, considering ways our devotion has slackened.

Next, Barton suggests that we also add a practice that helps us pursue God and draw close to him: prayer time when we used to watch TV, journaling when we used to scroll Facebook, etc. We return to God with renewed devotion.

Our Lenten message for Sunday, February 19 - the Sunday before Ash Wednesday - will be on the theme of getting right with God based on Luke 12:54-13:9. In this passage, Jesus urgently exhorts his hearers to get right with God before it is too late. For those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, we will take this opportunity to consider ways we have gotten onto wrong paths and into wrong habits that have led us away from God. In humility, we will repent by turning from those things in order to return to God.

Like the season of Advent leading to Christmas to celebrate Jesus' birth and incarnation, the season of Lent leads us to Good Friday - Jesus' death - and Easter - Jesus' resurrection. While Lent invites us into practices we do as individuals, when we do them as a body we practice them corporately. It's a way to build unity and anticipation of the death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

May God grant you and us a greater measure of humility that we may drink deeply of Jesus' finished work on our behalf.