Lent is an odd season for me.
I struggle with being quiet and reflective. I enjoy worshiping god and I enjoy worshiping him with spirit and emotion. That is not to say that I am not able to worship in a serious tone. I have never given up anything for lent and I have not understood why I should. I know that it is to understand what Christ gave up for us. But, does giving up soda really compare to Christ going to the Cross? If we are giving up things why are we not fasting on a regular basis?
I like to worship with joy and expression. I enjoy worshiping God and I look forward to being able to celebrate this wonderful God who loves me. I try to honor God in my life everyday. And sadly there is enough pain in the world. I worship Christ with my prayers and feel I can be serious without being down upon myself. We Christians have a habit of beating ourselves for what we did today. For listing our sins for God. Why not start with reviewing all that we did well for Christ. Go through that list and thank God.
I do not know perhaps I am making more of it. Let's celebrate Christ Love.
I really look forward to Easter.
Dan Johnson
I tried to post yesterday, but it looks like it didn’t take. I’ll try again.
ReplyDeleteI think most of us feel the same way. Your comments reminded me of my confirmation days and Luther’s words.
F. H. O. Jungkuntz
“Fasting and bodily preparation is, indeed, a fine outward training…” So pious and devout
Lutheran Christians have been taught in the succeeding centuries since the Reformation,
committing these words to memory as a part of their catechetical instruction (preparatory to Confirmation and admission to the Lord’s Supper for the first time). We are at once reminded that the balance of the statement reads, “…but he is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, Given and shed for you for the remission of sins.” While conceding the obvious emphasis in the statement, we are left to reckon with the equally evident fact that the latter clause neither negates nor neutralizes the former, so that we may assume that Lutheran catechumens are still instructed that “fasting and bodily preparation is, indeed, a fine outward training,” specifically, as this relates to the individual’s preparation for a profitable reception of the Sacrament, and ostensibly also, as a useful spiritual exercise for a salutary observance of Lent.
Lent is like winter and Easter is like the warm spring day. Maybe we appreciate Easter more after a long Lent (winter). I especially don’t like those hymns that are hard to sing.
Here is some Easter hymns (poems) the confirmation class did last Sunday.
Hymns by Confirmation Class
The seed is planted into the ground
As Jesus was put on this earth
As they both die
They also bloom.
Into the form they were always meant to take.
Where death is you victory?
Where death is your power to hurt?
Death gets its power to hurt from sin
And sin gets its power from the law
But thanks be to God who gives us victory Through our Lard Jesus Christ.
When the body is buried it is mortal;
When raised it will be immortal;
When buried it is ugly and weak;
When raised, it will be beautiful and strong
When buried, it is a physical body,
When raised, it will be a spiritual body.
The resurrection of Christ, holy true
Gave us our religion and faith.
The resurrection of Christ, joyful and happy
Helped shape who I am today.
The sting of death is sin and the power.
Lord your labor is not in vain.
Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead.
Peace, Mike Prange
Easter is almost here. We meditate all week on His passion and then celebrate life, even in a broken world. We need to die before we live. Words from Lori Cornell:
ReplyDelete"The first Easter begins under the pall of death. One clear sign of this is that all the players in this Easter narrative return to a living that looks more like death. Pilate secludes himself in his palace for the weekend, haunted by the execution he had ordered. The chief priests resume their duties, trying to justify their act of blasphemy. The soldiers go back to their stations, smarting from their grisly adventure. And the mob disperses to wherever, gloating over their crimes. The disciples go to their hiding places, feeling betrayed. Even the women, attempting to cope with their grief, are stumbling around in a graveyard in helpless love, looking for “the living among the dead” . Inevitably, we, too, engage in such behavior, fascinated with news about the dead and dying, pursuing at the same time a life-style of play and pleasure in order to feel alive. Fixated on death, we all have our ways of looking for life where death resides.
Not only do we get to be where life is, with Jesus and with one another as a people always being resurrected, we also get to go to the tombs, the places of death in the world, to bring new life to people stumbling about in their graveyards. Jesus is present among us in our personal, social, and political worlds, calling us to put an end to our death-chasing behavior, transforming us from doing what benefits us to what benefits our neighbors, whose hopes and dreams are being crushed one way or another. We are already on a new path, no longer fixated on death, instead leading others to follow the One who has conquered death and is alive forevermore."