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Pastor's Pen |
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Lent: Time to Check Your Vision
Is it just me or is the world spinning faster? I know that it's mostly a cliché of modern life to bemoan how busy we always are, but that's because it's true. My schedule is so crammed with activities that I consider it a good week when we actually keep the kitchen clean for two days in a row. I often feel so busy that the most luxurious thing I can imagine doing is reading a book. (Just sitting? Focusing on one thing for more than five minutes? People still do that?) It's because of this busy-ss that I'm always grateful for the season of Lent. That's not because life gets less busy during Lent. (As a pastor, it is often more busy than normal.) No, instead I'm grateful for Lent because it is a time to remember what really matters and that life isn't just about being busy. Lent is about coming home. It's a time to be reminded of who we are and whose we are. We are God's children, the Body of Christ, a people filled with the Holy Spirit. We are God's because each of us in baptism was marked with water and told, “you have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever.” Lent is a time to return to that moment and realize all of its implications. “You have been marked with the cross of Christ...forever.” There are many thing that demand our attention on a daily basis. So many, in fact, that it can be easy to be constantly distracted by the next thing, but Lent reminds us to stay focused on the one thing: we are marked with the cross of Christ. The cross means that God has called us to have a deeper, more meaningful life, not just a busy one. During Lent this year, we will be focusing on the theme of “Cross-Eyed: Seeing the World Through the Lens of the Cross.” If our relationship with God starts and ends at the cross, a place of weakness, that has a profound impact on how we see our place in this world. By using these days to turn our focus back to the cross, we can learn to shape our lives around the cross instead of “the little patterns that [the world] dictates” (Gal. 6:14). When we make the cross the center of who we are and how we live, when we focus on loving God and loving neighbor, then all the busy either takes on real purpose or it reveals itself as only busy stuff that's not worth our time. When we take time daily to be grateful, to be present with Jesus, to tell ourselves, “I am loved by God...forever,” then it becomes easier to do it without thinking. The more we sharpen our spiritual eyesight, the more joy and purpose we find in all that we do. I remember going to church once and the man assisting with communion was wearing a running t-shirt that read: “Because endorphins feel good.” Our t-shirts for Lent could be: “Because Grace feels good.” God is calling you home for Lent, calling you back to that simple mark on your forehead, calling you away from busy-ness to be about the business of the cross. Let the journey begin.
In God’s Amazing Grace, Pastor Ari
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