Post date: Feb 24, 2014 11:57:58 PM
Lent at Bethel
What is Lent? The season of Lent is the forty days plus Sundays beginning on Ash Wednesday (March 5) until Easter Eve. What is Lent? It includes Ash Wednesday service at Bethel with the Jamestown Lutheran Community, worship and lunch on Wednesdays at noon at First Lutheran, supper and worship at 6:00 on Wednesdays at Bethel, as we experience Acting Out Matthew’s Message: Lenten Dialogues Exploring the Gospel of Matthew, five Sundays in Lent, and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday worship with the Jamestown Lutheran Community. We invite you to all these Lenten events.
What is Lent about?
It is about our baptism, and being joined with Christ in his
It is about turning toward God and away from whatever keeps us from God.
It is about the cross. And what is the cross? The cross was an instrument of torture and death…where Jesus went to die so that you might have life, abundant life, eternal life. The cross is about salvation… The cross is the decisive thing that Jesus did/endured for you. The cross reminds us of what God is really like and how God works. What's God like? God is not what we expect. God is like a poor baby, born of a virgin in a barn. God is like a criminal, tortured to death and abandoned by friends. How does God work? God works through the lowest and most despised people. God finds us in our lowest moments, by working through the most unexpected folks. from Crazy Talk
It is about worship? And what is worship? It is what God does to us when we think we are singing, praying and listening, Here’s the thing. We think we are the ones doing stuff. We sing, we pray, we stand, we sit, we give, we listen, we talk and greet others, we eat and drink, and sometimes we sleep. But guess who is really the one doing .stuff? God! When we gather weekly in worship, God speaks to us through the Word (which comes to us not just in the scripture readings and sermon but in the hymns and the liturgy too). God speaks to us in the sacraments, God forgives us, God happens to us in worship. Then God sends us out to join in God’s mission to love, save, and bless the world. The Holy Spirit gathers us around Jesus, speaks to us and sends us. from Crazy Talk
Similarly:
Teaching is what God does when we think we are studying and learning from the Bible.
Prayer is about hearing what God is saying to us when we think we are talking to God.
Service is about what God does through us when we think we are doing God’s work.
Witness is about how God gathers others when we think we are bringing the Lord to others.
Isn’t it GREAT what God is doing with us?
I invite you to Lent to discover what God is doing in your life.