Sometimes I will stray from my theme for February, since there are more days in February than the gifts Paul wrote about in his letters. So today I want to talk today about the “Gift of Lent”.

Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday. Sundays in Lent are not counted in the forty days because each Sunday represents a “mini-Easter.” This is why you will see the designation “Sunday in Lent” rather than “Sunday of Lent” in the naming of these Sundays. So on each Sunday in Lent we have the opportunity to take a break from our Lenten disciplines to give ourselves the joyful anticipation of the Resurrection.

Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten, meaning “lengthen” and refers to the lengthening days of spring. The forty days matches the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, enduring the temptation of Satan and preparing to begin his ministry.

So, why Lent? Lent is a gift to us – it truly is. We all need time to reflect – and in this day and age it is hard to find quiet time. They say that the average adult today hears 20,000 messages in one day – between radio, television, internet, billboards, and the like. So, if we are to make Lent all it can be, then we need to slow down and live into this paschal mystery – even the darkness of Lent – and nothing is darker than the ashes of Ash Wednesday. 

Lent is a time of repentance, fasting and preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time of self-examination and reflection. In the early church, Lent began as a period of fasting and preparation for baptism by new converts and then became a time of penance by all Christians. Today, Christians focus on their relationship with God, growing as disciples and extending ourselves, often choosing to give up something or to volunteer and give of ourselves for others. So as we move into the darkness of Lent, we must find ways to live into the paschal mystery.

To make the most of Lent, you need to take Lent seriously, both in your individual faith, and in your participation in Lenten services and disciplines. The devil is lurking always, to lure you away from your focus on G-d. Face down the devil by focusing on your faith for the next forty days.

Pastor Dave

“Because the word that God speaks to us is always an incarnate word—a word spelled out to us not alphabetically, in syllables, but enigmatically, in events, even in the books we read and the movies we see—the chances are we will never get it just right. We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit. But if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling. In that sense autobiography becomes a way of praying, and a book like this, if it matters at all, matters mostly as a call to prayer.” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

Where do we go to find Martin Luther’s explanation to the Apostle’s Creed, and the Small and Large Catechism?  Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, Phillip Melanchthon and others compiled the important documents that form the Confessions of the Lutheran Church – the writings that make up the Book of Concord (1580). What are confessions?  We have creeds and confessions in the church. Creeds are “I Believe” statements, and as such we have three in the church: The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These statements actually begin (except the Athanasian Creed) with “I Believe…”.  These Creedal statements are used in the worship service as a confession, or a “profession” of what we believe.

Frederick Buechner writes: “We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit. But if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us.”

The Book of Concord helps us understand exactly what it is we Lutherans are supposed to believe – about the Word of G-d Jesus Christ, about Grace, about the Holy Spirit, and many other areas of faith. Throughout these devotions, as I find the time, I will address the different writings in the Book of Concord.  If we do not familiarize ourselves with the writings of the Lutheran Church that state our convictions, then we will be the lesser for it – as Christians who call ourselves Lutherans.

Pastor Dave