Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
As we gather each year for Ash Wednesday, we are invited to keep a holy Lent. Not because we’re bound to make it unholy, but because we need the reminder.
It begins by reminding us that the early Christians were reminded that this is a season of repentance. We invite new people to repent and our own.
Early Christians spent the season of Lent, not just preparing for the holiday of Easter, but for the very change that it brings.
Resurrection is change. Being changed.
In Easter, God changed the rules. About life and death. About repentance and forgiveness and mercy and love and what it means to be human.
Our job in Lent isn’t abstaining from chocolate because there’s something wrong with chocolate. It’s introducing self-discipline so that we take the five seconds to realize that change is the very nature of our existence. And that soon, we may have to reckon with the idea that someone who hurt us, who we have every reason to hate, has indeed changed. And we need to show mercy.
This is our work. To prepare ourselves. For the change. To be changed. And to be changed by letting other people in our lives change, too.
With love,
Drew