Tag: Ash Wednesday

Ashes and Onward

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

Today is Ash Wednesday. For some of you that means a lot, and for some of you that means very little. Regardless, I want to invite you to a season of spiritual growth as we begin Lent.

Lent, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is a season in the church’s liturgical calendar. Preceding Easter, which is April 9 this year, Lent has long been a time of reflection as Christians ready themselves for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Many of the ancient Christian churches saw this as a time of preparation for adult converts seeking to be baptized in the faith.

Ash Wednesday services typically launch Lent by focusing on a renewed connection to God through confession, repentance and that word some find icky, discipline. For those of you who have read Methodist Life regularly, this should already make sense, as confession and repentance have been embedded in disciplined prayer patterns we covered in September of last year and during the season of Advent.

I first want to encourage you to continue or resume the pattern of praying three times a day. You can review the suggested parts of such a pattern by going back to the “Expect Christ” series from Advent.

Second, I hope you will seriously consider finding an Ash Wednesday service at a church near you to begin the season of Lent. If you’re near the church I serve, Holston View Methodist in Weber City, Va., feel free to join us at 7 p.m. this evening. If you’ve never been to such a service before, don’t let the mystery of it all, or the ashes, scare you. Ash Wednesday services are usually quite simple, and the optional “black cross on the forehead” merely is an outward sign of repentance.

I also am going to be writing about Lent on a weekly basis here on Methodist Life, publishing on Wednesdays. As I write these weekly articles, I also hope some of us can develop a more personal connection throughout the season. If any of you would like to form an online discussion group during Lent, just email me at cwgriffiniii@gmail.com.

Such a group would make use of Christian videos found on RightNow Media. In fact, the kind folks at RightNow Media have said I can extend my church’s subscription to any of you viewing Methodist Life. Simply click here to gain free access. (If you have trouble getting access, let me know.)

I pray we can all be blessed by this season and develop some new relationships in the process.

Starting Point

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

By Chuck Griffin

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our season of Lent. If you attended a traditional Ash Wednesday service, you may have had the opportunity to recite Psalm 51, which is clearly a psalm of repentance.

Whatever you might be planning to do during Lent to draw closer to God, repentance is the place to begin. Through repentance, we open ourselves to God. Through repentance, we relieve ourselves of all sorts of burdens.

So, here is our prayer for today:

Psalm 51 (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin!

For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
    and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
    in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Ash Wednesday

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment

Isaiah 58:1-12

By John Grimm

The spiritual reasons for fasting have been lost on society.  United Methodists are surprised to learn that John Wesley fasted two days a week in his younger days. Later he fasted on Fridays. Charles Yrigoyen Jr., in “John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life,” writes:

Wesley was convinced that fasting, abstaining from food or drink, was a practice firmly grounded in the Bible. People in Old Testament times fasted (Ezra 8:23). So did Jesus and his followers (Matthew 4:2; Acts 13:3), and Wesley saw no reason why modern Christians should not follow the same pattern. His plan of fasting sometimes allowed for limited eating and drinking. He found that fasting advanced holiness.

Being holy, is that a reason to fast? Being holy seems to be a reason to fast. Isaiah 58 helps us get to how we should fast.

Why isn’t fasting working? We are rebelling.  These questions matter: Do we practice righteousness?  Whose interest are we serving? Are we quarreling?

God’s grace allows us to see the harsh reality of our lives. Sin is in our lives. At times, our attitudes are horrendous. It almost sounds like we, like Israel, can be spoiled brats trying to get the attention of our downtrodden parents! There must be more to drawing near to God.

What must change to have grace in our lives? We understand the kind of fast has the Lord chosen.  The fast the Lord has chosen includes justice, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, giving clothes to the naked, and welcoming the stranger (among other tasks).  By doing these works, we work in the grace God has given us.

God’s grace can work through fasting. It is not a diet. Fasting is not an idea for young adults and youth who are worried about their body image, who are leaning toward purging. That is a sign of needing help. If you need to get closer to God, to be more holy, then fasting can be one way that you draw closer to God. That is if you are helping those who need help. Otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels.

It is in the basics of our faith that we gain the means to be closer to God, to become holy as he is. During Lent, we can give up chocolate or sweets. That would be categorized as abstaining. But to give up a meal or two and spend the time in prayer and giving those funds to the needy, that is fasting.

Will you fast this Lent? For those of us with health concerns, talk with your doctor before you fast. For those of us who need to get closer to God, to allow his grace to work in our lives, then let us fast. Just do not let anybody know when you are fasting.

Feeling Betrayed

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

Our devotionals for Holy Week continue. The following ran on Luminary UMC’s website for Holy Wednesday last year, and received a lot of comments. It seems we’ve all felt betrayed at one time or another.

John 13:21-27 (NLT)

Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and he exclaimed, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me!”

The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom he could mean. The disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table. Simon Peter motioned to him to ask, “Who’s he talking about?” So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and asked, “Lord, who is it?”

Jesus responded, “It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.” And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus told him, “Hurry and do what you’re going to do.”

By Chuck Griffin

If you have a strong reaction to this story, you’ve probably been betrayed. A co-worker, a friend, a relative, a spouse—someone not only let you down, the person actually turned on you, consciously violating a long-established trust.

The closer the relationship, the worse the pain caused by the betrayal. It usually is hard for the victim of betrayal to let go, to forgive.

Most cultures hold betrayers in very low esteem. In Dante’s fictional account of hell, punishments grew progressively more severe moving inward, and the heart of the inner circle was for betrayers who remained frozen in painfully contorted positions. In the very center, Satan munched on the people Dante considered to be the three greatest traitors, Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius.

In contrast to our personal and cultural reactions, Jesus seemed resigned to betrayal. Of course, by this point in the story, he knew exactly where he was headed, down to the minute, I suspect.

Jesus didn’t do anything to change Judas when he gave him the morsel of bread; Judas’ heart was already turned toward sin. In the act, Jesus simply identified who among the 12 was most deeply broken. The sharing of the gravy-dipped bread makes me sad, though.

To eat with someone on such a night—in this case, to literally break bread—is an intimate moment. Earlier in the evening Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, Judas included, compounding the intimacy. But none of those acts could turn the betrayer from his plan.

On that night, Judas truly was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And once your mind is so firmly set in such a terrible direction, it is easy for Satan or one of his minions to enter and lead the way.

I do wonder about something, though. The Bible tells us that Judas died shortly after the betrayal. (The accounts of his death in Matthew 27 and Acts 1 are difficult to reconcile, but in each one he ends up dead.) Had he lived, how would the resurrected Jesus have treated his betrayer?

The closest analogy we have is Peter, who proved to be the worst of the deniers once Jesus had been arrested. Near the end of the Gospel of John, we see Jesus forgive and restore Peter. Again, the scene is intimate, on a beach near a charcoal fire, a breakfast of fish and bread cooked and waiting for some very ashamed men.

Had Judas lived, carrying with him the remorse and repentance he seems to bear in Matthew 27:3-4, I suspect he would have found forgiveness, too. Such radical forgiveness would be typical of the Savior we serve.

Lord, where we have been betrayed, let us find a way to forgive during this Holy Wednesday, and where we have betrayed others, may we be forgiven. Amen.

Almeida Júnior, “Remorse of Judas,” 1880

A Time for True Repentance

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, which prepares us for Easter. Let’s focus on a traditional Ash Wednesday Scripture, Isaiah 58:1-12, considering it in sections. (I’m using the New Living Translation today.) Throughout, Isaiah is speaking directly for the Lord.

“Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.
    Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.
Tell my people Israel of their sins!"

God wanted his people to recognize and be aware of their sins, calling upon his prophets to look to the Law and declare where the Israelites had strayed. There is no doubt God wants us to continue to recognize where we deviate from God’s will, first and foremost using the Bible as our guide.

   "Yet they act so pious!
They come to the Temple every day
    and seem delighted to learn all about me.
They act like a righteous nation
    that would never abandon the laws of its God.
They ask me to take action on their behalf,
    pretending they want to be near me.
‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.
    ‘Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves,
    and you don’t even notice it!’"

Religion, the system of living built around the worship of God, is a good and wonderful thing. But like any gift from God, religion can be abused. People can become so caught up in form that they forget function. The function of religion is to draw us into a closer relationship with God and better understand how God would have us relate to each other. This was true in Isaiah’s day, and it’s just as true now.

“I will tell you why!” I respond.
    “It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast,
    you keep oppressing your workers.
What good is fasting
    when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
    will never get you anywhere with me.
You humble yourselves
    by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
    like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
    and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
    Do you really think this will please the Lord?

“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
    lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
    and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry,
    and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
    and do not hide from relatives who need your help."

God expects us to treat each other equitably, to use the resources we have to lift each other up! We who are free spiritually, economically and in other ways should live so that others may be free, too. The season of Lent is a wonderful time to look around and find the places where we can make a difference.

“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
    and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your godliness will lead you forward,
    and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
    ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.
    Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
Feed the hungry,
    and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
    and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
The Lord will guide you continually,
    giving you water when you are dry
    and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like an ever-flowing spring.
Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
    Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
    and a restorer of homes."

Yes, there are benefits to living a life with God—properly repenting of our sins, trusting Jesus Christ as our savior and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us to holy actions we would not have considered before. Repentance opens the door to salvation and salvation gives us hope.

God is simply asking that we share that hope with others!

Lord, may this season of Lent be a proper time of reflection, repentance and renewal, and may what happens in us change the lives of others. Amen.

Psalm 30 People

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

This is the last LifeTalk devotional for January, so I thought I would be forward-thinking and mention a couple of opportunities we have to focus on the power of love in February.

The first is obvious. Feb. 14 is, of course, Valentine’s Day. It falls on a Sunday this year, so don’t let it creep up on you. Guys, we never want to be part of that sad sight at the pharmacy on a Feb. 13 evening, desperately picking through the cards and candy no one else wanted.

The second opportunity comes three days later. Feb. 17 may not bring immediate images of love to mind, but this year, it is the date for Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, which prepares us for the Good News of Easter April 4.

Ash Wednesday is somber, of course, a time for remembering how we have sinned, failing our creator. We traditionally have ashes smeared on our foreheads in the shape of a cross as a sign of our sorrow.

In remembering our brokenness and mortality, however, we also are encouraged to repent, and repentance from sin and restoration to God are possible only because of the most dramatic expression of love the world has ever seen. God loves us first, and through Jesus Christ, God has saved us from the eternal death we deserve.

Christ’s death on the cross makes it possible for us to be Psalm 30 people:

I cried out to you, O Lord.
    I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,
“What will you gain if I die,
    if I sink into the grave?
Can my dust praise you?
    Can it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me.
    Help me, O Lord.”

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!

We can repent of sin and turn back toward God at any time, accepting the love continually offered. We’re approaching a special time, though, a season when the liturgies and Scripture readings will call us repeatedly to put sin behind us and embrace what lies ahead.

Lord, search us and show us what is not of you. Help us to be aligned with your will, revealed powerfully and clearly in Scripture. In the coming Lent, may we experience an awakening that changes everything. Amen.