Starting today… God invites us to a holy lent.
This is not about giving up anything. We have already given up so many things.
This is not about punishment. Shame and castigation do not strengthen the soul. This is about repentance.
Repentance means a turning back. Lent is about turning back to the Source of what gives us life.
God invites us for the next 40 days to a season of self-examination, service, repentance,
forgiveness, prayer, fasting, humility, and the regular reading and meditating on God’s Word in the holy scripture.
God invites us to choose quiet over chaos, home over haste, selflessness over self-obsession,
generosity over greed.
God invites us to go in the name of Jesus to the hard places all around us.
God invites us to make friends of people who regularly suffer violations of human dignity in our culture.
God invites us to live differently for the next 40 days — not because we’re perfect or because we expect to be made
perfect, but because we are followers of Jesus Christ.
God invites us to live closer to the words we pray each week in worship.
I invite you to join me in this so we might make a good, new beginning with God, with our neighbors and with ourselves.
It is not about giving up. It is not about punishing ourselves. This is all about finding new life. A blessed Lent to you.