Lent 2024 week 1

How fitting that today, February 14th, not only marks Valentine’s day, but also  the first day of Lent. On the very day that people show all sorts of acts of love to one another, we would embark on our own journey toward the greatest act of love ever given.

Lent is a season of preparation for Jesus’s death. It is also a time to press in on the person of Jesus. As we reflect on this season, let’s get to know Him and receive all the mysteries our faith has to share. Life and death, held together, reveal the beauty of resurrection. By skipping ahead, we would miss the miracle of all three.

Life – Death – Resurrection

Lent is our time to reflect and prepare. It could also be our time to give up, cut back, or add and increase. It is our choice. But by acknowledging this time, we can discover why Lent is so important to us and our faith.

Today, I invite you to come along side Jesus, not as a reader but as His friend. Be there for Jesus just as you would for someone you love, even in His pain. Life is about relationship. Get to know Jesus.

If you want to experience Easter in a whole new way this year, on a deeper level, with greater understanding and appreciation of the One we follow, then come with me. From now until March 28th, let’s get to know Jesus. As we move a little slower, let’s bring new life to this old story.

My word is “preparation.” 

As I reflect on the word “preparation,” I hear a verse ringing in my ears, “Prepare ye the way.” As we prepare to receive the greatest act of love, we have to embrace life, death and resurrection. Together, the three work in mysterious ways.

During this season of Lent, we see Jesus preparing himself, the disciples and the rest of the world, for what comes next. We observe His life and He prepares us for His death. But without the final miracle, his resurrection, the cycle is incomplete.

Matthew 3:1-3 NIV says;

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea ² and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

John the Baptist prepared the way for Christ as he preached a message of repentance. But Isaiah had already spoken the same words 700 years earlier. As we prepare, let’s begin to trust the slow work of God.

Reflect on this. 

In Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s prayer entitled, Trust in the Slow Work of God, he writes;

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you.
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”

God is preparing you.

Can we trust the slow work of God, knowing we are not yet what we will be? Let’s look to Jesus as our model. As we reflect on his life, death and resurrection, we realize God is still preparing us. Because, God has so much to reveal through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Let us pray; Good and Gracious God, forgive us when we are impatient. Help us to trust You in all things, knowing one day your glory will be revealed in us and through us. Praise be to You, oh Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

P.S. – Leave me a comment, forward to a friend and/or post this on Facebook. -M

Wanna go deeper?  Start following Jesus. Read Matthew 4:1-11; Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 16-18. See you here next week, as we journey on together. -M