Tag: Lent

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The Latter Rain: Celebrating the Season of Lent

“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.” Joel 2:23 ESV

Every year I look forward to the celebration of Lent. That’s right. I said ‘celebration’ not ‘observation’. In my younger years I observed the season of Lent not really knowing what it was about. I fasted and tried to spend more time in prayer as if Lent was an obligation the church told me I should observe. 

In time, I began to see the Lenten season as much more than just something to be observed; it is a celebration of new life. Lent is placed on the liturgical calendar as a precursor to Springtime for a reason. In spring we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ as a time of new birth. Lent usually begins toward the end of the winter season; it comes to reminds us that spring is just around the corner. 

All things that look brown and dead now will soon be green and alive with new life. We too can come alive if we turn to the Lord in repentance and allow the Spirit of the Living God to wash over us, raising us up to new heights of living.

In Lent we are called to increase our times of fasting, prayer, and giving as a means of repentance. The Greek word for repentance means to turn away. However, when we turn away from something, we are necessarily turning toward something else. That something else is to turn toward a renewed life in the Spirit of God and away from our self-centered lives that so easily entangle us. 

The Latter Rain brings new life…

Today, many of us Christians mark our foreheads with ashes to remind ourselves that we are dust and to dust we shall return. But until the time of our return to the dust we can be re-born. No matter who we are or what we have done, we can die to ourselves and be continually re-born in the power of God’s Spirit. We can be re-born like the tulip bulb that lies dormant through much of the year but with the latter rain that falls in the spring, rises from the dust to new life.

The prophet Joel reminds God’s people to be glad and rejoice, for the Lord not only gave us the early rain, the blessings we have already experienced, but He also gives the latter rain. This latter rain comes to wash off the wintery dust that has collected on our souls and renew us once again.

Come, let us celebrate Ash Wednesday and be glad!

Shalom,

Pastor Brad

Image credit: https://www.quickcrop.ie/blog/2017/08/how-to-grow-tulips/

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Wisdom, Let Us Attend!

Wisdom, Let Us Attend

“Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.”

Wisdom 2:19

Wisdom Old Books

It’s only one more week till Good Friday, a day which no doubt is one of our high holy days as disciples of Jesus. We mark special days and times with special readings of scripture, so that we may ‘enter in’ with our spirits, to the very remembrance of what we celebrate. In our ‘entering in’, we hope to see anew our souls as they are before God. We seek to hear Jesus’ words to them then, as His words to us today. We want Him to search us and see if there is any wicked way in us (Psalm 139:23), that we may repent and be saved.

Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday, is one of those times we ‘enter in’ to such remembrances. Today we reflect on one of the readings of scripture for next week on Good Friday. However, the scripture is not one you may have heard before as it comes from what many Protestants call the ‘Apocrypha’ – The Book of Wisdom.

In our ‘entering in’, we hope to see anew our souls as they are before God.

Such books were set aside for holy reading, but not viewed as inspired by the some of the Protestant Reformers, which was a departure from the historic view of those books by both, Western and Eastern Christians. Whatever your opinion may be on what should or should not be a part of the Canon of Scripture, one thing is certain; you can’t read the Book of Wisdom and not see its inspired prophetic tone.

Wisdom, chapter two, is voiced as the thoughts of the evil men who put Jesus to death. Their thoughts speak of how they detest Jesus for what they see Him as, a self-righteousness man who professes special knowledge and condemned their ways:

12 ‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
13 He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child* of the Lord.

Wisdom 2:12-13

In their evil thoughts, those who condemned Jesus to death, didn’t realize how prophetic they were. Jesus is ‘the righteous man’, ‘the Messiah’. They saw Jesus as, “…inconvenient”. I pray we never see Jesus and His ways as an ‘inconvenience’, but I’m afraid we often do. How many times do we put off His urgings to us and dismiss them as just our own contriving’s? Jesus’ words do bring conviction to our souls if our hearts are open. Sadly, we know many hearts are not open to the Spirit of God.

As you prepare for Holy Week, I invite you to read Wisdom chapter two. You can read the entire chapter here. Listen for the voices of evil and notice how contemporary they are to the thoughts of so many today. Jesus challenged their way of living and thinking then, as He still does ours today.

In the ancient liturgies of Eastern Christianity, before scripture is read, the Reader chants out, “Wisdom, let us attend!” Let us attend to the wisdom of the Word today. May Jesus search us today and see if there be any wicked way in us… and let us repent, that He may turn our ashes into beauty.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

Image credit: https://www.ubiquityuniversity.org/wisdom-school/GreatBooks.htm

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The Greatest Force In All the World

The Greatest Force In the World

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Romans 8:35 NRSV

 

Because-God-is-Love-We-can-Love-Blog-HeaderGo ahead. Let your imagination run wild. I guarantee you won’t be able to think of anything so powerful, or so horrific it can separate us from the love of God. St. Paul tried to think of something – but he couldn’t. It just doesn’t exist.

The love of God is the greatest force in all the world, because it is the very essence of His being. St. John tells us this in his first letter, “…God IS love,” (1 John 4:16 emphasis added). John goes on to say that to live in God is to live in love. The problem in our world is, too many people ‘believe’ in God, when not enough actually ‘live’ in Him.

When we who believe in God, actually begin to live in Him, we change the world. It took less than three hundred years to convert the Roman Empire to Christianity; and that was with no mass media whatsoever. What began as a small band of radical Jews in a far-off unimportant corner of the Empire spread like a wild fire out of control. The fuel of the fire was the love of God that was poured out through those who called themselves Christian, those who chose to live out the mystery of participating in the life of God in Jesus Christ.

The love of God is the greatest force in all the world, because it is the very essence of His being.

You and I have that same choice to make today. The choice isn’t to just believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah, but to realize that He is God and has given His life, His love, His all for and to us. And, a part of that ‘all’ is that we may partake of His divine life, empowering us to live a life of unparalleled love for everyone, even our enemies.

Today, on this Lenten Friday, as you look upon the cross of Jesus and view His tortured, bleeding body, think about His love. Think about His goodness. Why not meditate on these words from songwriter Don Moen:

Think about His love, think about His goodness
Think about His grace that’s brought us trough
For as high as the heavens above
So great is the measure of our father’s love
Great is the measure of our Father’s love
So great is the measure of our Father’s love 

The cross of Christ… what love! Now that is turning ashes into beauty!

Listen to the full song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVo4otd9LGI

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

Image credit: https://philadelphiabapt.org/tlof-because-god-is-love/

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To Eat or Not to Eat?

To Eat or Not to Eat?

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give you.

John 6:27

Gourmet meal with chefHave I mentioned how much I love to eat? And not only eat, but I enjoy the pursuit of cooking a deliciously tasting gourmet meal that not only tastes great but looks fabulous. But, today is Wednesday and I really shouldn’t be writing about food; it will only tempt me more!

Wednesdays have always been a traditional day of fasting according to the ancient ways of the Christian faith. The Jews fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The early Christians, wanting to distinguish themselves from the Jews, chose Wednesdays and Fridays as fast days. Wednesdays are in remembrance of the betrayal of Jesus during the last week of His life before the cross, and Fridays are in honor of the day of His crucifixion.

The very fact that the Jews had two days of fasting each week should say something to us of what God expects from us. Jesus grew up fasting in a devout Jewish home. That means He fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays and celebrated all the many rituals of the faith in which He was raised.

We should take note that in the gospels Jesus never says the words, ‘if you fast’. Rather, in Matthew chapter 6 we hear Jesus say, “When you fast”. Jesus expects his disciples to fast. However, in many modern Christian churches the discipline of fasting is rarely if ever practiced. We should also note that fasting, in biblical terms, is always the giving up of food for a given time, and for the purpose of learning to rely upon God for our sustenance.

We should take note that in the gospels Jesus never says the words, ‘if you fast’ 

It’s interesting to me that the early church didn’t just fast during a particular season of the year, like Lent; they fasted every week. The practice of fasting quickly reveals the things that control our appetites. When we tell ourselves, we will do without something Satan seems to bring the temptation of it right to the forefront of our minds.

The practice of fasting quickly reveals the things that control our appetites. 

It is precisely in leaning on the power of God’s Spirit to help us overcome such temptations that we find the real value of fasting – we grow in the mighty power of God’s Spirit. We learn to do the hard work of relying upon God for spiritual food that fills and sustains us in ways earthly foods can’t. Several hours after eating our hunger pains soon return to haunt us. However, after feasting on God during our fasting, we will have a satisfaction no earthly food can give.

So, how’s your Lenten fast going? It’s never too late to begin, or should I say, ‘begin again’. Why not try it today? Offer some time of fasting and self-denial to the Lord today and spend the time you would normally be eating in prayer and reading of the Word. If you do, I promise you’ll find more than enough to satisfy your desires. To not eat may make you feel wilted at first, like turning to ash, but remember, God can turn ashes into Beauty.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

Image credit: https://www.thespruceeats.com/gourmet-defined-1665527

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Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

“Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now,

but you will follow later.”

John 13:36 NRSV

Yellow Brick RoadI know it’s a weak metaphor, but I love the Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy is told that to get home she needs to find the Wizard in Emerald City, and that the only way to find him is to follow the yellow brick road – I see a modern parallel to Jesus and his disciples.

In John 8:21 Jesus tells those who are questioning him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow”. However, in speaking to his disciples in John 13, on the last night before the cross, Jesus tells them that while they can’t follow him then, they will follow later. Then in chapter 14, Jesus tells them they know they way:

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” (emphasis added)

John 14:1-4 NKJV

Thomas then says in verse five what they were all thinking when he asked Jesus, “How can we know the way?” That’s a great question for each of us to ask this Lenten season. The Lenten spiritual practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are all guides to help us find the way of Jesus.

‘And where I go you know, and the way you know.’

The way of Jesus is the way to eternal life. To use my earlier metaphor, it’s the yellow brick road that leads to all the answers we need to get home. After all, that is where Jesus was going – home to Heaven, and that’s where we want to go too.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (vs. 6). The cross is the way home. No one gets home, literally or spiritually without dying. For those who will follow Jesus, there awaits a cross at the end of our yellow brick road. Or, perhaps, we should say the cross it at the start of our yellow brick road. We must die to ourselves before we can even begin the journey home.

‘For those who will follow Jesus, there awaits a cross at the end of our yellow brick road.’

I like to contemplate the cross of Christ on each Friday of Lent. Jesus said His disciples could follow him – later, after He conquered death for them in His resurrection. So too, He conquers death for all who will believe and follow. What the cross turned to ash Jesus made beautiful. Are you following?

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

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Beauty of the Ashes: Get Back In the Ring

Get Back in the Ring

And not only that, but we* also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

Romans 5:3

Muhammad Ali soaks up George Foreman's punches on the ropes in Zaire in the Rumble in the JungleI have an autographed picture of Muhammed Ali in my office at home. No, I never actually met him, but my nephew Jason did. He lived near the legendary boxer in Michigan and saw him in a restaurant one night. Jason knew I was a huge fan when I was growing up, so he got it and surprised me.

A lot of my uncles couldn’t understand why I was so crazy about Ali. They couldn’t stand him. There was a lot of hype about boxing in those days. Ali’s personality drove the hype, for sure. They called him a bragger and a loud mouth, and they were right. He was both of those things. However, I would always respond to them in my youthful wisdom, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up”, and he always did. He was the most amazing boxer ever in my, and in many others’ opinions.

One of the things I remember Ali bragging about most was his ability to not get hit. In his inimitable way, he made up limericks about it to taunt his opponents before a fight. “I’m gonna float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit, what your eyes can’t see. Ali!”

Of course, we know Ali did get hit and he got hit a lot. In fact, his Parkinson’s disease was attributed in part to his many hits to the head. As a fighter, he fought longer than many others and in his later years he took some pretty hard beatings, but he never quit, no matter how tough the beatings got. In fact, he boasted in his beatings. Like when he took the beatings from George Foreman and called them his ‘Rope-a-Dope’ tactic in their ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ fight.

St. Paul said he boasted in his sufferings too. I know, it’s a stretch to compare Muhammed Ali and the Apostle Paul in the same analogy, but I wanted to get your attention. Boasting isn’t a good thing; it’s arrogant. However, scripture says it’s okay to boast in the Lord about what He is accomplishing in your life – especially in your sufferings. In fact, it really isn’t boasting at all, if you’re giving God the glory…it’s a testimony.

In his hymn, ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ hymn writer Isaac Watts said, “Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God.” No matter what our sufferings, Paul wants us to know that they will produce endurance in our lives, if we sacrifice them all to the God’s glory. He alone can sustain us through any amount of suffering. And what’s more, God builds our character through our sufferings ultimately leading us to recognize our hope for deliverance is in Him alone.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

As you reach the midway point in your Lenten journey, stop and think about the fasting and self-denial you’ve offered to the Lord to this point. Hopefully, you’ve felt tempted but are staying strong in your resolve. Granted these are small things in the big sufferings of life, but we learn in small ways how to let God lead in big ways.

“…it really isn’t boasting at all, if you’re giving God the glory.”

The real purpose of Lent isn’t to punish ourselves and find new ways to suffer, but to grow closer to God in our dependence for everything, even the little things. Jesus said that real sustenance for life depends not on bread but on everything that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

“…but we learn in small ways how to let God lead in big ways”

If you feel like you’ve failed in your fast don’t beat yourself up, give it to God. Sacrifice it to his cross and ask him for strength to do better. Get back in the ring and take a few more punches. Your suffering won’t be in vain. Remember, our God turns ashes into beauty.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

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The Beauty of the Ashes: Search Me O God

Search Me O God

O God, you know my foolishness,
and my faults are not hidden from you.

Psalm 69:6

abraham-lincoln-quotesThere are many wise sayings attributed to Abraham Lincoln. One of the most common is this:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

That’s true, but there’s one person you can’t fool, any of the time – Jesus Christ. By the very definition of being God, knows everything we’ve ever done, said or thought. Yet sometimes we act as if we can fool Jesus by not admitting our sinfulness to him. How foolish we are.

God knew everything we would ever do, say or think before the world was created, so why do we act like we can hide anything from Him? When we realize that Jesus Christ, our Creator God, loves us in spite of all our foolishness and sins, we can finally become who He created us to be.

Real joy comes from being who God made us to be. Yes, even with all our faults and failures. The Father doesn’t want us to pretend we’re perfect. He doesn’t want us to try and please Him in our own power, trying to be someone we can’t be on our own. He wants us to give Him all of ourselves; all our sins, all our foolishness, all our hurts, hang ups and bad habits, and then let Him remake us into the beauty of His image; the image He bestowed within humanity in creation. When we realize this, confession becomes something, we long for, not something from which we run and hide.

‘Real joy comes from being who God made us to be.’

One of the reasons I love the season of Lent is that it offers us time to concentrate on becoming who we were made to be. Through increased times of prayer and fasting we place ourselves under the light of God’s loving microscope. We ask him to search our hearts as it says in the Psalms…

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

On this second Friday of Lent, why not spend some time in confession. Ask the Lord to search you out, to show you all your foolish ways. Stop trying to fool the One who knows you better than you know yourself. Prayerfully read and meditate on Psalms 139 and 51. Allow the Holy Spirit to check your spirit, to lead you in confessing everything He shows you. Ask Him to burn away all the sin and shame He reveals to you, then watch as He brings beauty out of your ashes.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

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The Beauty of the Ashes: A Change of Position

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee,

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Psalm 95:6

Repentance is a major theme of the season of Lent. One of the best ways for me to showPraying-on-Knees my repentance before God is to change my position. Yes, I mean literally change my position before Him. As we come to the first Friday of week one, the Psalmist reminds us of our proper place before the Lord – on our knees. It seems there are very few times in our modern world that we actually kneel down before the Lord God. Oh, for sure we have neat phrases like, “we’re never stronger than when we’re on our knees,” and “the only way to really rise up is to bow down,” but do we really believe it?

Lent offers us a chance to reset the position of our hearts before God, to remind ourselves that life really isn’t all about us and what happens to us. On Fridays, in remembrance of the day Jesus died, I like to spend some time on my knees contemplating the greatest act of love the world ever knew – the self-sacrifice of our God for love of His creation.

Lent offers us a chance to reset the position of our hearts before God

How can we possibly say thank you to our Father for such an incredible act of love? Well, the truth is we can’t ever fully thank God for his great sacrifice, but we can try. In fact, trying to thank God for His sending Christ to reconcile us to himself is really the heart of Lent. All our prayers, fasting, and works of mercy should be offered up as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to the one who died for us.

I want to encourage you to spend some time on your knees physically this first weekend of Lent, if you can. I find that the more I involve my whole body in an act of worship and devotion, it becomes a more humbling experience and I hear my Father’s voice even better. My heart is drawn even more into the Father’s heart… “for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture” …and as the psalmist continues, “Oh, that today we would hearken to His voice!” (Ps. 95:7-8)

“God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.”

Bede Griffiths

This weekend, try listening for the Father’s voice from a new position, like on your knees. You might be surprised how much better you can hear.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

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The Beauty of the Ashes: A Poem for the beginning of Lent

ash-wednesday

For the beauty of the Ashes,

For the glory they once revealed,

In these no words could ever capture,

God’s highest work in me He sealed.

 

For the beauty of the love that fills the world,

Even though in anguish with devils filled,

Let not my heart ere be defeated,

For all is thus, as God has willed.

 

For the beauty of Creation,

That sings a hymn of love so free,

May it join my heart as it proclaims,

This song of love, all for Thee

 

Because your beauty hung on a tree,

I sing of Thy goodness, and I sing of Thy sorrow,

For all You suffered, and for all I can see,

What ere befalls, I shall sing of the ‘morrow.

 

The ‘morrow when all is at last fulfilled,

No more by faith, but Thy face I will see,

So, give me today upon my brow,

The beauty of the Ashes, to be seen in me.

 

 

Brad Riley

 

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Don’t Bother Me With the Facts

 

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” 

John 9:39

Read John 9:18-41

Foghorn Leghorn“I say, I say, don’t bother me with the facts son, I’ve already made up my mind.” A bit of wisdom from one of my favorite cartoon characters, Foghorn Leghorn. It also sounds a lot like the Pharisees in their discourse with the blind man whom Jesus healed in John chapter nine. Have you ever been so sure you were right about something, you knew there was no way you were wrong, only to find out later you were? Me too. On little things, it really isn’t that big a deal. We’re all wrong at times, and it’s important that we admit it; that’s how we learn. But, on the big order questions of life – it matters.

The Leaders of the Jews were convinced they were right about Jesus; they had Him all figured out. In their mind, there was no way He was from God. In fact, they thought Jesus was from the Devil (Matt. 12:24), but they couldn’t have been more wrong. As they grilled the blind man, who was healed (John 9:18-41) about Jesus’ origins, the Pharisees couldn’t accept that He was from God. The healed man was amazed at their blindness (John 9:30). How could they not know He was from God? No one in the history of the world ever gave sight to someone born blind.

Lent is a great time to discover new truth about ourselves, and about God. Through the practice of spiritual disciplines like prayer and fasting, God will open our hearts and minds to new knowledge of Him, as He draws us deeper into the Spirit-filled life. However, all that fasting and prayer won’t make a bit of difference unless we can be taught. Are you open to being taught?

Each Lenten season the Father shows me new areas of life in which He wants me to improve. Sometimes the learning process feels like a fire that burns away at me; other times it’s more like a flood about to overwhelm me. It’s in those feelings of being overwhelmed that I must learn not react defensively with God. If I really want to know I’m right, I must admit when I’m wrong, even though it hurts,

Most of the Jewish leaders couldn’t admit they were wrong about Jesus. They couldn’t admit their blindness. They were convinced they could see him clearly, and that’s why they were lost.

“Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (John 9:41)

What about you? Are you too stubborn to admit your wrong, even in the face of overwhelming facts? Let God renew your heart by opening your eyes as you prepare for the miracle of Easter. Don’t be like my friend Foghorn. At the end of each episode, it never worked out for him. His stubbornness was his undoing. We laugh at cartoons, but this is real life. You can get a lot of things wrong in life, and still be okay. But, on the big order questions of life, if you get Jesus wrong…your eternity may hang in the balance. 

Shalom,

Pastor Brad

My daily Lenten prayer – “Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and sustain in me a willing spirit. ” NRSV

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