Preparing for Lent

Lent is approaching. As we prepare to enter Lent this Sunday we reflect on the Transfiguration of Christ in the midst of his earthly ministry. This lent we will have the opportunity to come together and share with each other each week Lent about our spiritual life what helps us in our relationship with God and following Jesus, but also our struggles. Christian faith is not meant to be a solo activity. Also, these are times to reflect on why we take time to fast (give things up) or take on certain spiritual disciplines for Lent. Many of us do not come from traditions that keep Lent, some of us do. What about Lent makes sense? What questions do you have about the keeping of Lent.
To prime the pump let me briefly put forward some thoughts about Lent: Lent is a time of preparation and self-examination. Lent is a Journey to the Cross and then to the Resurrection. The church year brings us back again and again to this central and crucial aspect of our faith that Jesus died upon a cross, was buried and rose again. Our actions as followers of Christ should be motivated from this center of our faith. Our sense of justice, our works of mercy and advocacy, what we do from day to day all should be informed by this great mystery of our faith. Yet, we are also continually learning what this means for ourselves and for the church as a whole, we will never stop being able to appropriate in new ways this great mystery, Lent offers us a time to return and re-appropriate this mystery of our faith into our lives both as individuals but also as a body of believers. What ever you decide to do for lent or not do, may this Lent allow you a time to re-appropriate the central mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is Risen Christ will come again.
In Christ,
Larry