What is Ash Wednesday and Lent?
Ash Wednesday - What is Lent?
Lent is the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter (not including Sundays) mirroring the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness before beginning His public ministry. It serves as a time of preparation and an opportunity for us to deepen in our faith by reflecting on the temptation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
As you enter into these Lenten Reflections, there is an unmistakable spotlight on the role that sin has played and continues to play in our lives. Tyler Staton says it well in his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools:
“Sin, defined by the biblical imagination, is not an accusation or a condemnation; it’s just a diagnosis. It’s a trip to the doctor’s office where you describe your symptoms and discover that ‘there’s a name for this disease.’ It’s this sin which inhibits us from doing what we were made to do best - love - to receive love and to give it.
Why does sin interfere with love? Because, as Eugene Peterson defines it, ‘Sin is a refused relationship with God that spills over into a wrong relationship with others.’
If sin is the disease, then Lent is the annual wellness visit where we seek to root out the sickness that inhibits us from giving and receiving love. Yet, in this process we seek a godly sorrow that leads to repentance - not shame. Our end goal is restoration, healing, and life - not despair.
So as you enter into these Lenten reflections, may it help you to take the journey inward and downward. May you encounter at a heart level the overwhelming love of God that would stop at nothing to rescue us (Romans 5:8).
What to Expect
Week one of our Lenten Reflections begins by remembering what we truly are - dust. This awareness leads us to a posture of humility as we invite the Holy Spirit to search out any offensive way in us.
Week two through four we are invited to journey with Jesus through His temptations in the desert. Here we will confront our need for security, love, and control and the ways we seek to meet those desires in unhealthy ways.
Week five and six we will follow Jesus out of the desert trials into his formal ministry where we are invited to consider His call to godly repentance and belief as a means of taking hold of The Kingdom of God that is near.
Lastly, moving into Holy Week, we will be reminded that even when we are faithless, He is faithful - this requires a patient trust. As we discover hard truth’s, we are invited to run to God rather than away from Him.
May this Lenten season serve to bring greater awareness and reorient your heart towards a loving God that desires to root out all that inhibits you from receiving and giving His love.
