Introduction

This article is the March 2010 installment of my monthly message in the parish newsletter for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb.

Exhorting

When we gathered on the evening of Ash Wednesday, we heard an exhortation calling us to a season of renewal in our discipleship. The words are so well chosen and powerful that it is worthwhile for to hear them again:

Brothers and sisters: God created us to experience joy in communion with Him, to love all humanity, and to live in harmony with all of His creation. But sin separates us from God, our neighbors, and creation, and so we do not enjoy the life our Creator intended for us. Also, by our sin we grieve our Father, who does not desire us to come under His judgment, but to turn to Him and live.

As disciples of the Lord Jesus we are called to struggle against everything that leads us away from love of God and neighbor. Repentance, fasting, prayer, and works of love–the disciplines of Lent–help us to wage our spiritual warfare. I invite you, therefore, to commit yourselves to this struggle and confess your sins, asking our Father for strength to persevere in your Lenten discipline. (Lutheran Book of Worship: Ministers Desk Edition, p. 129)

Turning

God desires for us “to turn to him.” Another way to say this is that He seeks our repentance. The Greek word we translate here is metanoia. It means making an about-face and heading in a new direction. So as we make our way on our journey through Lent, we can see clearly how God calls us off of the road that leads us away from Him and onto a path of faithful discipleship.

The traditional spiritual disciplines of Lent—“fasting, prayer, and works of love”—are never meant as ends in themselves or as churchified New Year’s resolutions. They really are a gift to us from God, a way to help us make that turn away from ourselves, our own agendas, and our selfish desires, and to lead us to faithful discipleship.

Beginning

Even though we are now a few weeks into Lent, it’s not too late to pray about how God is leading us to adopt a Lenten discipline. One way to get started is to remind ourselves each day that we are God’s children and to ask what He calls us to do as members of His family. In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther asks a question:

What does Baptism mean for daily living?
It means that our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever. (SC, IV.4)

When we wash our faces in the morning, we can consider using that water as a reminder of our Baptism. As we wash away the dirt and are cleansed and refreshed, we recall that God works in ours lives to renew us by His grace.
Then, for our acts of fasting, we can find something to relinquish, to give up. And when we have a desire for that thing, we can use that urge to remind us of how Jesus Christ gave up Himself to defeat sin, death, and the devil, and to gain new life for us. Then we can thank the Father in prayer for that reminder. Finally, we can seek those ways, even small ones, where we can act to care for other people rather than ourselves. This humbling work of love, or almsgiving, gives us training in living as disciples of our Lord who calls us to love God and others with all that He gives to us.

Encouraging

God knows that the Christian life is not an easy one. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why He creates and sustains the Church, the body of believers, so that we are not left alone as we “wage our spiritual warfare.” It helps to come together for worship, to hear God’s Word and share His Meal, and to exhort one another in our turn and return to discipleship.