We have been toying with this idea for a while, and at staff meeting this morning, it was decided that it is time to get started.
In the near future, we are going to start including a short (1-5 minute) video in the newsletter each week that answers the strange, odd, and interesting questions that you have about the church.
Regarding the questions:
We want these videos to answer questions you actually have. In a certain sense, anything about the church, Christian theology, our worship, the Bible, etc. is fair game. Realistically, not everything can be addressed in 1-5 minutes, and so some questions will have to be set aside. But I am certain that many of you have had questions pop into mind during worship (or at other random times), and this is your chance to ask them. Simply email the questions to Steven!
We will create a short video on our YouTube page and link it to our newsletter. Your question will likely help others and hopefully spur other questions. The end goal, of course, is deeper understanding and appreciation for what we do, both as part of the Church Universal and as members of a local church. As we begin to populate the YouTube page, feel free to share it with others who might be interested in various aspects of our worship, discipleship, or church life. These are for public consumption, and might be a helpful way to introduce people to the church.
We won’t start putting these videos in the newsletter until we have received a sufficient number of questions, because we know that there will be “dry spells” when no questions come in. We need to fill the reservoir, so that we can get started without worrying about running out of questions.
To that end, email me your questions!
In Christ,
Steven+
An Introduction to Ash Wednesday and Lent
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period of preparation for Easter. From very early on the church believed that it was important to prepare for the celebration of the resurrection through fasting, penitence, prayer, reading Scripture, and gifts to the poor. It might strike you as odd that that the early church felt that we need to prepare for Easter for 40 days, and it might strike you as odd that preparation for the celebration doesn’t mean cleaning and decorating the home or buying the ingredients for the big meal. Fasting, alms-giving, penitence, Scripture reading, and prayer are strange sorts of preparation!
It is odd, because our culture doesn’t do this sort of thing. We aren’t particularly patient; we tend to think in minutes and hours rather than weeks and months. 40 days of preparation for a church service feels a bit strange to us! But the ancient church believed that the great feasts of the church—Easter and Christmas—were something to prepare for, and preparation was a movement of the soul over a long period of time. The early Christians saw this pattern all over the Bible. Noah underwent a period of waiting on the ark as the rain fell for 40 days before he came out and encountered God. Moses waited in Midian for 40 years before he met God and returned to Egypt to free his people. He fasted on Sinai for 40 days before he received the Law from God and saw God himself. The Israelites waited in the desert for 40 years before entering the promised land. Elijah fasted for 40 days before he encountered God at Mount Horeb. Jesus fasted for 40 days before beginning his ministry of salvation.
The early church rightly taught that preparing for an encounter with God or for a new season of ministry was the Biblical pattern. According to the Bible, the best way to prepare was to pray, to fast from things that distract us, to pay particular attention to confession and repentance, to increase our devotion to the Scriptures and worship, and to give to the needy.
We need to “mortify” ourselves; that is, we need to put to death our desires through fasting and confession, so that we will be prepared to meet God in the celebration of the resurrection of the Son. We don’t earn anything by doing this. God doesn’t love us more if we keep a rigorous fast. Fasting can make people self-righteous if they think it gives them favor with God or makes them better than others. We fast, very simply, because we need it: we are distracted, weighed down by the world, weighed down by our fleshly desires. We need to be purged so that we can see God clearly, and Lent is the great period of preparation and purging, of mortification and prayer, while we wait to celebrate the resurrection again. I once heard someone say, “If you are driving through the mountains with mud on the windshield, taking the mud off doesn’t make you more in the mountains. But it sure helps you see them more clearly!” Fasting doesn’t earn our place with God, but it can help us see him!
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Tonight, you will be reminded of your mortality, reminded of your sinfulness, and called to confession, prayer, and fasting. But you are being called to fasting so that you might be ready to rejoice again in the resurrection. Our hope is not in our fasting or spiritual disciplines. Thankfully, Lent does not last forever! Our hope is in the fact that the Son of God became man, died on our behalf, and conquered Hell, Satan, and death by rising again from the dead. He is now at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, and by his Spirit we can enter the very presence of the Father in heaven with him. This is our hope!
Steven+
Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent
Every year, I need the reminder that I need to prepare for the great feasts of the Christian calendar. Jesus’ birth and his death and resurrection are simply too big to comprehend unless we prepare ourselves first. If we don’t humble ourselves and become attentive, it can be hard to see and receive Jesus in the feasts of Christmas and Easter. The celebrations can easily crowd out an intimate awareness of Jesus.
The Christian life is a pilgrimage into the heart of God. Along the way, there are moments when we get glimpses of the end of the journey—like a hiker who sees the mountaintop through a gap in the trees, we are given brief moments when we see who Jesus is and grasp his love for us. These moments aren’t limited to Christmas and Easter, but these holy days are certainly chief among them. But we won’t be ready for these glimpses of Jesus unless we humble ourselves and rid ourselves of the things that normally keep us from seeing God.
Lent is a season of throwing off the things that keep us from seeing Jesus. We throw off sin through vigorous confession and repentance, we throw off selfishness through almsgiving, we throw off self-reliance through a renewed focus on prayer, and we throw off distractions and pleasures through significant fasting. It is a penitential season, when purposeful awareness of our sin and mortality should drive us to the cross over and over in a posture of self-renunciation.
We focus on both our sin and mortality on Ash Wednesday. This day of fasting (of the whole year, only Good Friday’s fast should be deeper!) is a moment to come face-to-face with the facts that we will die and that we are in desperate need of mercy. We don’t like to face these truths, but unless we face them, we will not truly realize what Jesus has done for us. And so, face them we will, as we fast throughout the day and gather together on Wednesday evening.
But Ash Wednesday begins on Shrove Tuesday! Even though Shrove Tuesday is a time of joy—dinner together is a blessing—it is supposed to be the beginning of our self-examination and confession. The word “shrove” comes from an archaic word that means confession and absolution. Shrove Tuesday is the first step of Lent, just as packing one’s bags is the first step of taking a trip. Even before Lent begins, we begin by taking stock of the state of our souls and confessing what needs to be confessed.
Use Shrove Tuesday as a moment to take stock of what needs to be confessed, and then spend Ash Wednesday in penitence and fasting before you join the congregation in prayer. These acts of humility are not acts of morbidity or self-hatred, but instead simply the necessary honesty that we must have if we are to come into the presence of the merciful one, Jesus Christ the Righteous. If, as you practice this self-examination, recognize that it would be good to confess out loud to someone, do not hesitate to contact one of the priests at Incarnation.
In Christ,
Steven+