Lent is a season of forty days, excluding Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday. The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten, which means "spring." The season is a preparation for celebrating Easter. It is a good time to prepare candidates for baptism. And then baptism occurs during Easter Sunday.

 

As a tradition and practice, Lent is characterized as a period of fasting, a time for penance by all Christians across denominational lines. Even though a Christian's belief hinges very strongly on the Easter faith, of triumph over death, a Christian cannot avoid but must deal with the reality of suffering and death of Jesus for a meaningful faith to grow. Put it simply and yet theologically profound, Christians must go through the Good Friday first before the glory of Easter is experienced.

 

Tonight we gather together to observe Ash Wednesday. It is the beginning of Lent featuring our own mortality as humans as we confess our sin before God and the community of faith. Our own mortality says we are from "dust and to dust we shall return." As we brought nothing to this world, we are taking nothing when our summons comes.

 

I offer three ways by which individually, as a small group, or as a congregation we could make use of this Lent season in a meaningful way.

 

ONE: Attend to your private and personal devotion either as a couple or as an individual. Use your Bible, Daily Bread, Upper Room to help you accomplish this. Allocate a longer prayer time. List down prayer needs of the world, community, and family and your needs as well to make it even more personal and hitting home as opposed to general and generic prayers.

 

TWO: Attend a group Bible study focused on the suffering of Jesus and his eventual triumph on the cross. If there is none that suits your taste or interest, create another one or announce that you are interested to join one or inviting others to join your group. Is the group meeting lunch time (which you might decide not to have as part of your fasting), after dinner, with the location announced. Make sure you are inviting people to commit only for four or five sessions. Later on you might discover that those who will attend might want to continue as a study group after Easter.

 

THREE: Plan your own individualized fasting. Is it every lunch, breakfast, dinner or missing all refreshments in between meals? Is it one day each week? John Wesley and his followers strongly observed fasting not just during Lent. If you are more ambitious and this is something you want to lead, organize a Lenten retreat that might require an overnight or a weekend at a place suitable for such an activity. Korean Christians have their own Prayer Mountain where they gather every Friday night---up to midnight to pray. Bottom line is that you are seeking a special time to be with God, to be honest with God, to undergo some moments of purification, to be lost with God, to be spiritually restless until you find rest in God as Augustine would put it.

 

I hope that this Lent Season, beginning with Ash Wednesday worship, would be a meaningful spiritual journey for us all. While we plan the best intention for us to introduce and make Jesus Christ known to the world, this Lent is an intentional way also of introducing Jesus to us personally. The Wesminster Confession of the Reformed tradition confesses that the "chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy God forever." Some annual conferences of the United Methodist Church would combine Epiphany and Lent by adopting the goal: "To know Christ and make Him known."

 

In Christ,

 

 

 

Pastor Fred

Guam United Methodist Church