Lent Examination: Fear

This week we’ve been talking about becoming too familiar with the idea of Jesus.  The question being: is the gospel an active reality in our lives, or have we accidentally reduced the message of forgiveness, peace with God and the Kingdom of heaven to the realm of inspirational fairy-tale?  There is a tendency to become inoculated to power of the gospel by exposure to shallow, selfish versions of the gospel.

Inoculation is subtle.  Tiny little introductions that render us immune.  Take the Chicken Pox vaccine: our children get just the tiniest exposure to Chicken Pox so their bodies naturally avoid a full-blown case of the disease.  Inoculation is please continue reading…

Reading John 2 and 3…

(BTW, I’ve spoken on this in a couple of churches, so if we’re real live friends you may have heard me talk about this already.)

John 2:23-3:2 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust (same word we translate as “have faith“) himself to them, because he knew all (people) and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.  Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him…”  (same word “anthropos” in the Greek)

So Jesus is doing some miracles; we don’t know exactly what, only one is recorded: the water into wine miracle.  Then there is the temple tirade please continue reading

Ream Reader and Blogger Chris Swenson sent me the following.  I think his thoughts on the beginning of Lent ring true for a lot of us who have an Evangelical background and have begun searching for deeper, older ways of connecting with Christ…

I can honestly say that I have never observed Lent.  Not because I don’t care about, it just never fit into spirituality.  As I get older, I’m learning that these practices that I used to consider as “religious” have a true meaning to them.  please keep reading

I am surrounded by noise.  Not how I hoped to begin this season.  Everything crowds out this ancient Jesus who speaks more quietly than everyone else I know.

Today if John the Baptist announced, “Behold the Lamb of God,” I’d miss it.  Simple as that.  For me, this season of repentance begins with the realization that I stop up my own ears from hearing the proclamation.

My grandma, GrammaMona, passed away this morning at her home.  She had been battling cancer for a couple of years.  Some people are so lucky, and I am one of them.  Over the past month I have been writing bits of her story to hopefully share with a wider audience.  GrammaMona thought I could have chosen a better subject, and snickered a bit when I told her I was compiling her stories.

Molly, GrammaMona and me.

She obliged nevertheless.  Grandmas are famous for caving to the whims of their please click to continue reading

Invitation to Lent…

We’re gearing up to walk through the season of Lent together.  As you know, Lent is the time of year on the church calendar when believers contemplate Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness as we approach the cross and the empty tomb.  The Lenten season is marked by increased prayer and fasting, as individuals examine their own lives with humility and repentant hearts.

Ream of Paper has invited you to share your reflections as blog posts so that we might encourage one another continue reading

If you read the daily bread post, you have to read Kristin’s comment (scroll to the bottom of the page to read comments).  Some day’s your “daily bread needs” are bigger than others!  As if God is freaked out by size…

Thanks for sharing that story Kristin.