From the Pastor's Pen, November, 2005:

March 2006 From the Pastor's Pen

“Lent”

The turn of a page of the calendar this month reveals that the beginning of the month of March is also the beginning of the season of Lent. Ash Wednesday, the traditional beginning point of the Lenten journey, is a time to stop and consider who we are as God's people, what we are called to do, and simply to reflect on God's gifts to us in Jesus Christ.

Historically, Lent was a time when new converts to Christianity spent time in preparation for their baptism on Easter. Those forty days of Lent, which echo the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting, praying, being tempted, and preparing himself for his ministry, become a time of spiritual searching for us as well. That's why the tradition of "giving something up" for Lent began. It was a way to experience some discipline, some self-denial, in order to focus more fully on Christ. Observing Lent, whether by fasting, giving up some habit or treat, or a discipline of prayer or Bible study, is a way of taking some time to get ourselves out of the way, so that God can come in. One way I've approached Lenten disciplines in the past is to ask myself, "what is standing in the way of my relationship with God?"

This year we will gather with many other churches at Peoples Church in East Lansing for a simple, reflective service for Ash Wednesday (see related article for more information). Peoples Church has a labyrinth in the church fellowship hall, which will be available for those who want to walk the labyrinth after worship as a sign of the Lenten journey. Among the words we will hear at that service are these, from the Ash Wednesday ritual in the United Methodist Book of Worship:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to observe a holy Lent: by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word. To make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before our Creator and Redeemer.

What does it mean to say, "as a mark of our mortal nature"? We certainly "make our mark" on Ash Wednesday, or at least we may do so, as we receive the imposition of ashes on our forehead. We remind ourselves that we are human, mortal, standing in need of repentance and forgiveness. We remember both who we are and who we are not; we remember that we need the grace of God in our lives. We "make our mark" not to single ourselves out, or to point to our own holiness, but to acknowledge how much we need God in our lives.

Frederick Buechner, in his wonderful book, Whistling in the Dark, writes about Lent as a series of questions Christians ask about what it means to be themselves. The questions might differ for each of us, but the idea is to ask who we are, who we understand ourselves to be as God's people, what is most important to us. Buechner ends this passage about Lent with these words:

"To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin
to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are
becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty
depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the
start of it, something like Easter may be at the end."

In this season of Lent, may we be willing to live the questions. And if we make our mark of mortality and repentance at the beginning, may we know the joy, the real, resurrection joy of Easter at the end.

On the Journey with you,

e-mail Pastor Baker-Streevy