Comments (1) Jeff Boyd who blogs at Adventist Activism has a great Lenten series going over at the Spectrum blog. Today’s post is “Time for Lent: Love Your Enemies” and is worth your time to read. I’ll be following Jeff’s series closely in the days ahead.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And … love your neighbor as yourself.”I pastor a church in the suburbs called CrossWalk. We have a saying around our church that we are learning to love well. It’s our mission and it comes from this simple yet challenging teaching of Jesus. Scot McKnight refers to this as the Jesus Creed. Several years ago be began reciting it throughout the day. It transformed his life and eventually led him to write The Jesus Creed.
Since the Jesus Creed is the basis of CrossWalk’s mission we decided to encourage our community to go through Scot’s companion book 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed during the season of Lent. Each day provides a simple reflection on learning to love well. So far it’s been a good experience. In fact my family is using it everyday. We’re reciting the Jesus Creed with our kids each morning and evening (we’ve even had some fun with it while driving around town).
So if you’re looking for something to add to your Lenten practices this year, there’s still time to grab a copy and join us on our journey. In fact, come by CrossWalk this week if you are in town and I’ll give you a free copy (We gave away 300 copies at CrossWalk the last few weeks). There’s a few books left, but its first come first serve at this point.
Here’s an article by Barbara Brown Taylor on the meaning of Lent. I like her take
on how the forty days idea took root in Christian faith & practice. It’s from a 1998 issue of Christian Century, titled Settling for Less, based on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Luke 4:1-13:
Do not bother looking for Lent in your Bible dictionary. There was no such thing in biblical times. There is some evidence that early Christians fasted 40 hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the custom of spending 40 days in prayer and self-denial did not arise until later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith.
When the world did not end as Jesus himself had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves. They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines, remembering their once passionate devotion to God the way they remembered the other enthusiasms of their youth. Continue reading 'The Meaning of Lent'»
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
