Today marks the beginning of Lent. It’s that season on the church calendar that invites us to think about our faith in a more intentional way.
Think of the season of Lent as the church’s spiritual boot camp. It’s a grueling six-week work-out. It’s not for the faint of heart.
This is why we tend to see more church announcements about bible studies, small groups, and serving opportunities during this time of year. Even preachers work a little harder on their sermons because they know that this is a season where people are more receptive to matters of faith.
Think about it. Why else would you be here in church in the middle February and on Valentine’s Day, no less? You could be at home binge watching some really cool shows on Netflix. But, no. You’re here. And when it’s all said and done, you’re going to walk out of here with ashes smudged on your forehead. What a way to spend a weekday!
So, I’m operating under the assumption that what has brought you here isn’t any clever advertising that we have done on our part to get you here. You’re here because deep down inside, you know that there is more about your faith that you want to explore, that you NEED to explore.
You’re probably here today because as much as we’d like to believe that being a Christian should come naturally, it actually can be the most challenging thing we ever seek to do.
This was illustrated very clearly to our family this past summer while we were on vacation. We spent a week at a lake home. The brochure said that our week stay would come with a boat, a golf cart to take get to a nearby restaurant, and several other wonderful amenities, anything you would ever want to enjoy for a peaceful and relaxing vacation away from home. Our daughter and son-in-law were with us.
Now, I’m the kind of person who likes to get his money’s worth so on that first day of vacation, I insisted that we take the golf cart to a nearby restaurant. It was an electric cart and the owner told us that it was all juiced up and ready to use. Off we go.
Well, about halfway down the road, it started to get slower and slower. Long story short, the four of us had to get out of the cart and push it the remaining way in 90 degree heat and high humidity. The same thing happened on the way back to the lake house.
We all joked that it had a mind of its own.
The next morning, we all got in the pontoon boat for a relaxing ride on the lake. Kind of like the golf cart experience, it stalled in the middle of the lake. Somehow, by the grace of God, we got it to start again, and got it back to the dock.
I called the boat owner and told him about it. And these were his exact words. “That thing can have a mind of it’s own.” And he proceeded to rattle off some things I would need to do to the fuel pump so that it wouldn’t stall on us again.
Because I can be super stubborn, I insisted that we take our chances again. The next day, we went out on the lake again. I did what he told me to do with the fuel pump. Same thing. We stalled in the middle of the lake. By the grace of God, we sputtered our way back to land.
And so, the theme of last summer’s vacation became, “It has a mind of its own.”
You know, you and I can become like that golf cart and that pontoon boat. We too, can have a mind of our own where we can be temperamental. We stutter and stall, and fail to be who God designed us to be.
Ash Wednesday and Lent is a time set apart on the church calendar for us to not have a mind of our own, but to take on the mind of Christ. Our scripture readings for this Ash Wednesday service focus on the importance of training our minds through the practice of spiritual disciplines.
Matthew talks about giving alms, praying, fasting, and storing up treasures in heaven. The prophet Joel talks about returning to the Lord and gathering with God’s people. The Psalmist talks about confessing our transgressions and allowing God to give us a clean heart and a new and right spirit.
All of these disciplines and spiritual practices are ways for us to renew our minds and have a single focus in growing deeper in our faith and have a growing relationship with God. Think of the season of Lent as a seven-week journey in practicing our faith in a very intentional way.
As we begin this journey together, here are some practical ways that we can exercise the spiritual disciplines that we read about in our scripture readings.
The first thing we can do is to attend weekly worship serves. For this season of Lent, we are focusing on seven different robes of Jesus and how each robe can help us grow in becoming more like Christ.
We started this series last Sunday when we focused on Jesus’ shining robe when he was transfigured in front of his disciples on the mountain. This Sunday, we’re going to look at Jesus’ healing robe and we’re going to offer the opportunity for people to receive the anointing of oil and be healed of any physical, emotional, relational, mental, or spiritual brokenness.
For the remaining five Sundays, we will look at Jesus’s serving robe when he washed the disciples’ feet, Jesus’ uniting robe when the soldiers tore his robe apart, Jesus’ honoring robe, when people spread their robes along his path when he entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus’ redeeming robe when he was placed in a tomb after he died on Good Friday, and Jesus’ living robe when he rose from the grave on Easter Sunday.
Our Chancel Choir is singing an anthem based on each of these robes during Lent. On Palm Sunday, they will sing a cantata that will include all of these songs. Our worship services during this season of Lent are to help us touch these different robes of Jesus and become more like him. Attending weekly worship is a great way to grow deeper in our faith.
The second thing we can do is to sign up for one of our small groups. We offer several small groups that meet on different days, times, and locations. Each small group meets for an hour and 15 minutes and they use the discussion questions from the previous week’s sermon. The discussion questions are designed to help us recognize God’s presence in our lives based on the worship theme.
For this season of Lent, our small groups will focus on the worship theme, “Come, Touch the Robe,” which I just spoke about a little bit ago.
Our small groups not only help us to think deeper about our faith, but they also are a great way to make new friends in the church, receive and offer encouragement, and pray with and for each other.
A third way to help us have the mind of Christ rather than a mind of our own, is to participate in our upcoming Bible Studies and Sunday School classes. You may have noticed that we are offering even more Learning Faith opportunities during this Season of Lent. These are great ways to give our faith a really good work-out.
How do we grow in having the mind of Christ rather than a mind of our own that can easily stall and sputter? Worship, small groups, Learning Faith opportunities, prayer, scripture, fasting, repentance, giving, and there are many other spiritual disciplines that help us to grow deeper in our faith.
And then just this thought as we embark on this spiritual boot camp called Lent. A couple of months ago, I was visiting someone in the hospital. This person was in a rehab unit.
When I got to this person’s room, he was in the middle of his therapy. A couple of nurses were helping him to walk down the hallway from his room. When he arrived back to his room and made it to his bed, I entered his room to visit with him.
A few minutes later, a nurse came into the room and reminded him how to do his own therapy there in his room. The nurse then looked over at me while speaking to him and said, “Now, it’s great that your pastor is here to visit with you because encouragement and prayer are important, but I only want you to do the therapy when you don’t have visitors so you won’t be distracted.”
And then she said something that I’ll never forget and what I want to share with you because I think it totally relates to what God is calling us to do especially as we begin the season of Lent. This nurse said, “The reason I want you to do the therapy when nobody is visiting you is because you need to be totally focused on this. That’s what is going to help you recover.”
“You need to be totally focused on this.”
I think those are good words for us on this Ash Wednesday. We need to be totally focused if we truly want to grow deeper in our faith and have the mind of Christ. And we can have the mind of Christ by practicing the spiritual disciplines of our faith.
We need to be totally focused in practicing these spiritual disciplines so that we can have the mind of Christ.
Like the nurse said, “You need to be totally focused on this.”
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