Luther Seminary professor David Lose posts a daily devotion on his website,  “In the Meantime.” You’ll also find a host of other resources on Lose’s site relating faith to life. Click here to visit.

If you’re looking for something for teens and young adults (or the perpetually young at heart) try d365.org’s Lenten series. The short daily devotion is set to wonderful music and follows the Revised Common Lectionary. Click here to visit Journey to the Cross. (Image by JezobelJones used under Creative Commons License. Thanks!)

Photo by used under Creative Commons License. Thanks!

First Sunday in Lent, Year B

February 26, 2012

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” – Mark 1:14-15

Time is a funny thing. We humans like to think we can control and manipulate it. We wear our watches, watch our clocks, and check our smart phones in an effort to manage our time and make the most of it. We say time is in our hands. We look for signs of the time in which we find ourselves. We regret or revere the past, hurry through the present, and plan the future, assuming time is on our side.

This week we entered a time that many Christians call Lent. Marked with a dusty cross on our foreheads, we stepped into a time of repentance, reflection, and renewal. We are encouraged to devote time and energy to the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21). We are reminded of our mortality but also flooded with the mercy and grace of our Creator. We are “dusty” folk washed clean in the grace-full waters of baptism and drenched with the Spirit. The signs of our discipleship time point toward Easter resurrection beyond the shadow of the cross.

We begin with a lesson from Genesis concerning God’s covenant with Noah and his family. After water both destroys and makes new, God hangs a bow in the sky for all to see proclaiming that destruction is no longer part of the plan. It is a sign of the time, God’s time, God’s way, and God’s will for humankind.

The psalmist’s cry in this week’s psalm (25) is an appropriate one as we journey deeper into Lent, returning to God, seeking mercy and compassion. Like the psalmist, we too seek instruction and desire to know God’s ways, to be loved rather than shamed. This song has much to say about the nature of God, about the Creators steadfast love compassion for humankind.

Peter takes time in his letter to outline how God has worked through Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection to draw us into the divine circle. In baptism we are cleansed and made new. It is time for a new way of living and being.

Finally, in Mark’s urgent account of Jesus’ baptism, temptation, and beginning of ministry, we encounter a new sign of the time, a sign that in Jesus the covenant inaugurated with Noah and established with Israel is now fulfilled in God made flesh in the person of Jesus. It is time to repent and believe. It is time to know that God is up to something this time that will last for all of time.

Time is something most of us find in short supply. We never seem to have enough time to do all we want to do and be all we desire to be. How then, is the Lenten call to slow down, refocus, and draw nearer to God heard amidst all the other demands for and claims on our time? Do people even have time for the spiritual disciplines of the season? Is it a sign of our time that the allure of the world and its grip on our hours and days makes a real relationship with God so difficult?

These are not easy questions to answer. Long-running television soap opera The Days of our Lives opened with this line: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” Lent gives us the opportunity to mark time in a different way by drawing nearer to the kairos time of God and away from the siren chronos pull of this world. Indeed, the time has been fulfilled, is being fulfilled, and will be fulfilled. Fortunately, unlike our hourglass days, our Creator holds time in eternal hands and desire to give us a glimpse.

May God bless your teaching, preaching, and ministry, holding you in covenant grace that transcends the limits of time. Peace and blessing on your Lenten journey.

Photo by opendemocracy, Sarah Korf, local Louisville, and alancleaver_2000 used under Creative Commons License. Thanks!

For me, Ash Wednesday answers all these questions. Specifically the part of Ash Wednesday when the pastor makes two swipes of a dirty thumb across my forehead and says, “Remember, human, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The gesture and the words express our lowly condition as human beings: Time will destroy us despite the defensive ramparts and barricades we construct with our money, our fame, our beauty, our power, and so on. So if death and dust are inevitable, Ash Wednesday asks us, why do we human beings build our silly defenses as if, AS IF they will protect us? Why build put up barriers when instead, we can use our time, our wealth, our creativity and power to live free, abundant lives for God’s purposes?

Ash Wednesday reminds u s that all of us are guilty of the great sins of failing to love the Lord Our God with all our being and failing loving our neighbor as ourselves. Lent calls us to repentance and self examination. And exactly this is the meaning of repentance — to turn away from sin and turn towards God.

How we use our lives and what we are living for are, ultimately, issues of stewardship. Ash Wednesday dramatically condemns us, all of us, for being poor stewards of the bountiful lives that God gives us. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are “dead people walking” and sets the tone for our Lenten self examination.

Of course, Ash Wednesday isn’t the end of the story. That will come 40 some-odd days from now, and we’ll discuss that later. For now, meditate on these words: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return!”

Photo by On the White Line, used by Creative Commons license. Thanks!

Transfiguration of our Lord

February 19, 2012

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  — 2 Corinthians 4:6

What do you make of the story of Jesus’ transfiguration in the presence of Peter, James, and John? I’m not talking about getting all rational or speaking theologically about this account as it is presented in Mark’s gospel; I want to know how it speaks to your heart, to your core, to who you are as a child of God.

I sometimes think we look at events in scripture as distant and removed from the realm of possibility, as story-book stuff. The closest we come to scripture as real life happens through the visions of Hollywood directors like Cecil B. DeMille (The Ten Commandments) or Mel Gibson (The Passion of the Christ). Maybe that is a sweeping assumption, but I’m willing to bet that NFL superstars and Academy Award winners are more real and relevant to most folks than Jesus and his entourage of disciples.

Maybe that’s what happened with Peter, James, and John when they saw Jesus for who and what he really is — God’s beloved son. He had just told his closest followers that some of them would see the Kingdom of God (Mark 9:1). There on that mountaintop three of them got a glimpse of that reality, and it confused the heck out of them. Ever wonder how they knew with whom Jesus was conversing? Remember, there were no Kodak memories at that time. Did they simply know at some deep gut level that they were in the presence of Moses and Elijah? Were they wearing name tags? Did God tell them while speaking from the cloud? Maybe Jesus filled in the gaps with some narration. We’re not told all of the details, just the really important ones.

We know that the three disciples saw Jesus for who he really is, in all his God-glory. We know that God told them (and us) to listen to Jesus. We know that the experience didn’t last, and that Jesus and his disciples were back in the trenches of life and ministry in short order. Finally, we know they puzzled over the whole experience, and that somehow they were transformed by it themselves.

Paul, who also experienced God-light on the Damascus road, has a few things to say about the light of the gospel in his second letter to the Corinthians. He reminds us of our proper response to Jesus, to the good news we are called to share, and how we are to reflect the light of God-in-Christ. We, you and I, have been transfigured by the love of God and the grace of Jesus Christ so that we carry the light within. We don’t, however, carry the light to keep it in, but rather to let it shine through us revealing something of God to the world.

It’s tough to let our little God-lights shine in the darkness of this broken world. There is so much that can blind people to the light of Christ; sometimes it feels like comparing the glow of a firefly (us) to a brightly-lit Broadway marquee (the lures and charms of the world). How can we compete?

I guess the best way to start is to take Paul’s words to heart. It’s not about us. It’s all about the message we bear. We don’t have to worry about the wattage of our message or the brightness of our bulb. God has all of that handled. We simply need to put ourselves out there, living in the light and love of Christ, walking in the way, and sharing what we know of God as revealed in the Son.

Think of it this way: Have you ever watched a field come alive at night with the soft pulsing glow of myriad fireflies? Alone, a single firefly’s light is miniscule. When a host of the creatures are out there doing their firefly thing, the sight is simply amazing, Each one of us has the capacity to give others a glimpse of the God-Light, but when we as the church work together, the light of Christ shines bright and beautiful offering a beacon of hope to the searching soul.

Let your light shine, no matter how dim or bright you may assume it to be. Remember, with God all things are possible, including using your light right here, right now.

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