I always used to give something up for Lent.
I guess all that changed when I went away to college, a practice I just left
behind. But when I was little, giving something up seemed like an important
thing to do. Some of the kids I hung out with would even ask what you were giving
up for Lent, and usually my answer was candy. I'd stick to it, too, all the
way from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday - no one had ever told me that the Sundays
of Lent were each a little Easter, a time when you could break your
fast. I'm not even sure now why we did it, why we fasted for that long, forty
days - but when I look back at it now, I think it helped set Lent apart for
me, and that by the time we got to Easter I felt better, stronger, like I had
accomplished something.
The things we do in church are often very different than what the world or
society or work expects us to do. Out there, they call us consumers,
and expect us to take more, do more, eat more, buy more, make more, consume
more. In church we practice at being Christians, and work on being less - living
on less (by giving away our treasure), eating less (by sharing a meal of only
bread and wine), doing less (by sitting still, and listening for God). We know
that practice makes permanent, so we practice at living like Jesus,
at taking up our cross and following Christ, in the hope that what we practice
in there becomes a permanent part of our lives out there.
This year I'm giving something up for Lent. I'm going to live on a little less,
practice just a little sacrifice, work for the next forty days at teaching myself
that I can depend on God and not my stuff or the way I stuff myself. I hope
you'll join me: Thursday evenings, for simple suppers and vespers; Sunday mornings,
for a break from our fast; during the week, for any number of Bible studies.
Give up a little time, and see how God fills it with Christ.
Pastor Jim
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those
who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- March 2009
Copyright 2009 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.