Pure Thoughts About The Season of Lent

Well, it's Day #2 of the Season of Lent 2014 and here are some pure thoughts I have been pondering:

General Thoughts:

Lent mirrors the 40-day period of fasting that Jesus modeled and we read about in Matthew's Gospel account. Some Lent observers choose to have ash placed on their foreheads as the Season of Lent commences on Ash Wednesday. The ashes that are traditionally used are created by the burning of palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations. As the ashes are applied, the shape of the cross is re-enacted as the words from Genesis 3:19 are spoken: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Devotional Thoughts:

Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not... Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now... Lent is a summons to live anew... Lent is the time to let life in again, to rebuild the worlds we've allowed to go sterile, to "fast and weep and mourn" for the goods we've foregone. If our own lives are not to die from lack of nourishment, we must sacrifice the pride or the sloth or the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again. Then, as Joel 2:12-18 promises, God will have pity on us and pour into our hearts the life we know down deep that we are lacking.

-- Joan Chittister, Catholic Nun

Grateful

Palm Sunday. Passion Sunday.

Passion is a kind of waiting - waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that He was going to put a choice before them: Will you be My disciple, or will you be My executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say "Yes" or "No". That is the great drama of Jesus' passion: He had to wait for their response. What would they do? Betray Him or embrace Him?
-- Henri Nouwen

Lord, will you please enter
our seasons of passion,
our seasons of pausing...
with Your peace,
with Your presence.
In Jesus' Name. Amen.

Please Love Jesus Passionately!
Grateful 

Jesus Wants To Be Our Hero. No Fooling.

This Palm Sunday morning (also April Fool's Day in the USA) I preached on the seven sayings Jesus spoke while nailed to the Cross of Calvary. The message touched my own heart with deep-water emotion as I shared it with the congregation, especially when I repeated the fifth saying of Jesus on the Cross -- these two words -- "I thirst!" It had never before touched me as deep as it did this morning. Feeling abandoned by His Father, in complete vulnerability, almost like a little boy who was lost in the dark night of His soul, Jesus cried out, "I thirst."

When I arrived at home, one of my partners in Ministry, Pastor Joseph, our Worship Pastor sent me this e-mail message with a very touching song to listen to:

Subject: Great song that just caps off the day...

I heard this song on the way home from church.

Thought you’d like this.

-- Joseph

Click here: Abandon - Hero - YouTube

Jesus Paid It All. He Wants to Be Our Hero. No Fooling.

Grateful

A Palm Sunday Proclamation: "I Will Go!"

Today is Palm Sunday 2011. Some 2,000 years ago, King Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem to announce in His own humble way that His Holy Kingdom was underway. On that day, He was also declaring A Palm Sunday Proclamation that all of Heaven understood totally. Yes, as Jesus humbled Himself on Palm Sunday, He was proclaiming that "He would go to the Cross on Good Friday."

Now, it's our turn. Will you say, will I say, "I Will Go?" This Crystal Lewis song will help make such a proclamation more understandable:

Click here: YouTube - Crystal Lewis - I Will Go (ppt)

Count it all joy.
Grateful