CHURCH SEASONS - LENT

Reflections on Lent
Colors of Lent
Scriptures for Lent

We have just started the season of Lent.  But how many of of actually know what Lent is?

Lent is a time when Christians pray, ask for forgiveness, and prepare for Easter.  It lasts forty days (excluding Sundays), and begins on Ash Wednesday (which is the 40th weekday before Easter.  The week before Easter is called Holy Week.  Lent ends on what is called Holy Saturday. Sundays are not counted among the forty days because Sundays celebrate the resurrection of Christ. 

During Lent, Christians enter a sacred time of reflection and repentance for sins.  Followers of Jesus rededicate themselves, and those who are new to the faith prepare for baptism.  It is customary for Christians to fast, or refrain from certain foods and activities during this season. It is also common to wear or display special Lenten colors.  When one observes Lent, he or she is actually imitating the time when Jesus withdrew into the wilderness for forty days so that he could fast and pray (Matthew 4:2).  Jesus used this time to prepare for his ministry.
                             

I found the following "Reflections on Lent" while searching for information to post on our website.  I am including it with permission, as I believe that Dennis makes a very thought provoking, powerful statement.  

Reflections on Lent
by Dennis Bratcher

We enjoy celebrating Palm Sunday. The children get to make paper palm branches and for many is one of the few times they get to take an active role in "big church." We wave the palm branches and celebrate. And we all love Easter Sunday! It is a happy time, with flowers, new clothes, and the expectation of Spring in the air.

But it is too easy and promotes too cheap a grace to focus only on the high points of Palm Sunday and Easter without walking with Jesus through the darkness of Good Friday, a journey that begins on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a way to place ourselves before God humbled, bringing in our hands no price whereby we can ourselves purchase our salvation. It is a way to confess our total inadequacy before God, to strip ourselves bare of all pretense to righteousness, to come before God in dust and ashes. It is a way to empty ourselves of our false pride, of our rationalizations that prevent us from seeing ourselves as needy creatures, of our "perfectionist" tendencies that blind us to the beam in our own eyes.

Through prayer that gives up self, we seek to open ourselves up before God, and to hear anew the call "Come unto me!" We seek to recognize and respond afresh to God’s presence in our lives and in our world. We seek to place our needs, our fears, our failures, our hopes, our very lives in God’s hands, again. And we seek by abandoning ourselves in Jesus’ death to recognize again who God is, to allow His transforming grace to work in us once more, and to come to worship Him on Easter Sunday with a fresh victory and hope that goes beyond the new clothes, the Spring flowers, the happy music.

But it begins in ashes. And it journeys though darkness. It is a spiritual pilgrimage that I am convinced we must make one way or the other for genuine spiritual renewal to come. I have heard the passage in 2 Chronicles 7:14 quoted a lot: "...if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." This usually is quoted in the context of wanting revival or renewal in the church, and the prayer is interpreted as intercessory prayer for others. But a careful reading of the passage will reveal that the prayer that is called for here is not intercessory prayer for others; it is penitential prayer for the faith community, for us. It is not to call for others to repent; it is a call for us, God’s people, to repent. It is our land that needs healed, it is our wicked ways from which we need to turn, we are the ones who need to seek God’s face.

Perhaps during the Lenten season we should stop praying for others as if we were virtuous enough to do so. Perhaps we should take off our righteous robes just long enough during this 40 days to put ashes on our own heads, to come before God with a new humility that is willing to confess, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner." Maybe we should be willing to prostrate ourselves before God and plead, "Lord, in my hand no price I bring; simply to the cross I cling." That might put us in a position to hear God in ways that we have not heard Him in a long time. And it may be the beginning of a healing for which we have so longed.

O Lord, begin with me. Here. Now.

-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright © 2006, Dennis Bratcher - All Rights Reserved

 

Lenten Colors

In Jesus’ time, purple dye cost a lot of money. A s a result, purple became a symbol of wealth, power, and royalty.  We use purple for the season of Lent.  This season is a time when we reflect on Jesus, the royal King of kings who sacrificed his life for us.  Purple has also become a color to represent a time of penitence when we ask God to forgive us for sinning.

During Holy Week, the week before Easter which includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, we use red.  Red is the color of blood.  This color is used to symbolize the death of a martyr.  Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, and forgave us for doing wrong.  Jesus bled while he was on the cross, so the color red reminds us of the beautiful sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

GOD’S WORD FOR LIFE
A Daily Bible Reading Plan for Lent

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent – a time for reflection, repentance, and renewal – when Christians are invited to prepare themselves spiritually for the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection. Throughout the forty weekdays of Lent and the six Sundays in Lent, pray and reflect on the renewing power of God’s Word.

Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with Your Life-Giving Spirit

Ash Wednesday Luke 4:1-13 
Thursday Romans 8:1-17 
Friday Galatians 5:16-26 
Saturday Ephesians 4:17-24

Week 1
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Repentance and Forgiveness

Sunday Psalm 51 
Monday Matthew 6:5-15 
Tuesday Matthew 18:21-35 
Wednesday Luke 15:11-32 
Thursday Ephesians 4:25—5:2 
Friday 1 John 1:5-10 
Saturday Psalm 130

Week 2
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Hope and Trust

Sunday Genesis 12:1-9 
Monday Genesis 22:1-19 
Tuesday Isaiah 51:1-16 
Wednesday Luke 12:22-34 
Thursday Romans 4:13-25 
Friday Hebrews 6:13-20 
Saturday Psalm 62

Week 3
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Sunday Luke 17:11-19 
Monday 2 Corinthians 9:1-15 
Tuesday Ephesians 5:6-20 
Wednesday Philippians 4:1-9 
Thursday Colossians 3:1-17 
Friday 1 Chronicles 16:7-36 
Saturday Psalm 103

Week 4
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Love and Servanthood

Sunday Matthew 23:1-12 
Monday Mark 10:35-45 
Tuesday John 15:1-17 
Wednesday Romans 12:9-21 
Thursday Romans 13:8-14 
Friday 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 
Saturday 1 John 4:7-21

Week 5
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Discipleship and Commitment

Sunday Luke 5:1-11 
Monday Luke 9:22-27 
Tuesday Matthew 10:16-33 
Wednesday Matthew 10:34-42 
Thursday John 15:18-27 
Friday 2 Timothy 2:1-13 
Saturday 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Week 6
Lord God, by Your Word Fill Me with a Spirit of Obedience and Humility

Sunday John 13:1-20 
Monday Philippians 2:1-11 
Tuesday Psalm 22 
Wednesday Isaiah 52:13—53:12 
Thursday Luke 22:39-71 
Friday Luke 23:1-56 
Saturday Hebrews 4:14—5:10