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+
Scripture Reflections
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8
The prophet Jeremiah, speaking to the Israelites as they were being exiled from their homeland, here quotes and expands on Psalm 1, the psalm we sang and read together this past Sunday. Like Psalm 1, this prophecy asks of us: where, and to whom, do you send out your roots?
In the next month our family anticipates moving into a house and more fully making a home for ourselves here in Kazakhstan—and then for a few months, from June to November, we will be back in the US, in this place which is also our home. Where do we belong? As we think through this and try to arm ourselves for the struggle we are in and know is coming, especially for our boys, I’ve been reading quite a bit on Third Culture Kids (TCKs). This is a description of kids like ours, who have a home as expatriates in some country other than their passport country, where they also have a home. Many authors discuss the difficulty TCKs have in answering the question, “Where are you from?” and the longing they experience to know where they belong. But the proposed solutions of some of this literature come up empty: find belonging in yourself; find belonging in your family; find belonging in the TCK, international, or expatriate community.
We all long for belonging whether or not we even have a passport, but to try to root ourselves in ourselves or in others is to make ourselves into tumbleweed. Jeremiah’s prophecy quoted above begins with (Jer. 17:5-6):
“Thus says the Lord:
‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.’”
To trust, to send out our roots to humans—to ourselves or to those around us, even those who have or seem to have what we’re looking for—is fatal. We must trust, we must send out our roots only to our Father, who alone is the source of life. The apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus gives us a picture of ourselves as tumbleweed, desperately trying to root ourselves in ourselves or in others who are flesh like us (Ephesians 4:14): “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” But he also gives us a picture of who we are and can be as we learn to trust God, as we send out our roots to our Father (Eph 4:15-16): “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
Ultimately, what we want our sons to say of themselves as they answer “Where are you from?” and the deeper question behind it, “Who are you?” is this: “I am a baptized man, bought with the blood of Christ, made a member of his (worldwide and centuries deep) Church, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Where do we belong? We want to know because we want to be able to abide, to come and stay, to rest and be fed, to be known and loved. Listen as Jesus prays for you and me (and for all our children!) in John 17:20-26—and even now as he stands before the Father interceding for us:
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Hannah
What does it mean to think like a Christian about the government?
On Sunday, January 19, we began a series in Adult Sunday School about a Christian view of government. After a month-long break, we are going to be resuming it this Sunday (2/16)!
If you missed the first session, I strongly encourage you to print out the handout and take an hour to listen to the audio. That session is the foundation for what we will be discussing over the next few classes.
One of the foundational truths that we began with last time is that all government is established by God. Over the next two sessions (2/16 and 3/2), we are going to be addressing the specific question of why God has done this. Why does he establish governments? Seeing his purpose should hopefully clarify for us how to think about our own government, and it will likely also begin to reveal how different the human perspective on the purpose of government is from God’s perspective.
Just like in the first session, we are going to be avoiding the particular political issues that divide Americans; instead, my goal is a Biblical understanding of government itself. Once the foundation is in place, I hope that it begins to change how we wrestle with the issues, but we need to start with the foundation.
Make a point to stay after church for Sunday School this week! As always, childcare will be provided for the youngest kids, and Sunday School will be offered for upper elementary, middle school, and high school students.
In Christ,
Steven+