Dear friends,
Easter is very early this year, and that means that Lent begins early, as well. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten journey, is February 9.
Our traditions regarding Lent are well-established here at Peace, and we look forward to them. On Ash Wednesday we will gather at 7 p.m. for a service of Holy Communion which will include imposition of ashes for those who wish to receive them.
Then, beginning the next week on February 17, we gather each Thursday evening. There is a soup supper at 6 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall, followed by the Holden Evening Prayer service in the church at 7 p.m.
Our theme for these services this year will be “The Marks of the Church.” Theologians through the centuries have used this phrase to describe the characteristics (“marks”) which identify the true church—in other words, to understand how to recognize the church.
Luther took a crack at this kind of definition, and it is his explication of the “marks” that we will follow, one each week between Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. Luther, of course, was writing in the context of a mighty controversy between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformers. The medieval church had come to define the church in terms of obedience to the Pope and the Councils of the Church, and submission in terms of theological teaching. Luther was concerned to demonstrate that this was not at all what defined the church; there were other, more basic matters.
First and foremost was the Word of God. By this Luther meant something a bit more than the Bible itself, though the Bible is certainly a part of it. He had in mind, however, the “Word” in the sense of the preaching the heart of the gospel: that we are saved by grace through faith, and not through our own works.
He quickly added five other “marks”: Baptism, the Eucharist, Confession and Absolution, the ordained ministry, and prayer—things, one might say, the church does which distinguishes it from any other group. The final mark, he said, is the Cross. The church exists where people give up everything to follow Christ; where people are willing to suffer for Christ’s sake; where people live as disciples who, in the words of Jesus himself, “take up their cross and follow him.”
There
is a lot on which to reflect in these seven “marks,” and we will do it together
through this Lenten series. I hope that you will make it part of your own
renewal and discipline to set aside time each Thursday evening to join us as we
sing and pray and ponder together.
Peace to you,
Pastor Richard O. Johnson
Forgive them all, O Lord:
our sins of omission and our sins of commission;
the sins of our youth and the sins of our riper years;
the sins of our souls and the sins of our bodies;
our secret and our more open sins;
our sins of ignorance and surprise, and our more
deliberate and presumptuous sins;
the sins we have done to please ourselves
and the sins we have done to please others;
the sins we know and remember,
and the sins we have forgotten;
the sins we have striven to hide from others
and the sins by which we have made others offend;
forgive them, O Lord, forgive them all for his sake,
who died for our sins and rose for our justification,
and now stands at thy right hand to make intercession for us,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
--John Wesley (1703-1791)
Founder of Methodism
From the Associate Pastor
Psalm 117- Alleluia! Praise Yahweh, all nations, extol him, all peoples, for his faithful love is strong and his constancy never-ending (NJB). You just read the shortest Psalm in the Bible. If you like, you can read the longest as well, Psalm 119. I had the confirmation students read it and they complained.
But back to Psalm 117. Though it is short, it contains great truth about our relationship with God. First, we and everyone else should praise him. Foremost, our lives should be of praise and worship. The Psalms always point to God. Second, God has covenantal love (hesed in Hebrew) for us. God made a covenant to love and provide for us. He never breaks that covenant. His love never ends.
Though life may be difficult and God’s hesed not perceived we must trust that He is for us and not against us. We must give thanks and praise always in faith. A life of praise is how we live, even through the despairing times in our life.
Psalm 117- such a short Psalm but one that summarizes all of the Psalms. Try reading a Psalm a day as a way to praise God.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Dean
Liturgy Notes: Lent
On Ash Wednesday we enter the season of the church year known as Lent. The early development of Lent is rather controversial among scholars, in part because the early references to a pre-Easter period are rather numerous but conflicting in their explanations of how and why that season was observed. We have evidence from as early as the third century that a time of preparation for the Easter celebration was observed in some places; but over the next several centuries, we get many very different glimpses of just what that meant.
One of the earliest purposes of this period was that it was a time of intensive preparation for those about to be baptized. In the earliest centuries of the church, the Easter Vigil, held the night before Easter, was the most important time for baptism; and so a season was marked off that represented required instruction and spiritual preparation for the catechumens (literally, those who were “being taught”). As time went on, and society became more and more Christianized, there were fewer adult candidates for baptism (since almost everyone was baptized in infancy). The purpose of the season thus began to change its character from one of preparation to one of penitence. At first, “Lent” was the season when those who were grievous sinners did special acts of penance in preparation for their formal reconciliation to the to the Christian community on Maundy Thursday. But gradually—perhaps as early as the fifth century, and certainly by the eleventh—it became a time when all the Christian faithful fasted and did penitential exercises of one sort or another.
The time table of Lent also developed over the years. We know that by the time of the council of Nicea (325 A.D.), there is reference to a 40-day fast which may refer to what we know as Lent. However, churches in different parts of the world reckoned those 40 days in various ways. What became standard in the Western church in the seventh century was a period of six weeks (not counting Sundays) plus four days. Sundays are not counted because in the medieval church they were always feas5t days, and fasting was not appropriate. (That’s why, even today, we refer to the various Sundays “in Lent” rather than “of Lent.”) Counting back six weeks from Easter gives only 36 days if we omit Sundays, so the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the seventh week were added—thus making 40 days in all. That, of course, is why Lent always begins on a Wednesday. The figure of 40 days was probably used to parallel Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness.
Ash Wednesday was a somber day, of course. The imposition of ashes was again a custom that changed through the years. Originally it seems to have been the sign of “enrolling” a sinner in the period of penitence. By the tenth century, all Christian people were expected to receive the sign of ashes as a symbol of their own penitential discipline.
In more recent years, most churches have tried to recover some of the earlier meaning of Lent without abandoning entirely the later understandings. Thus Lent today is seen as a time of penitence, but even more as a time of renewal. We may individually adopt certain “disciplines” during Lent, but their purpose is not primarily to express our sorrow but to remind us of our utter dependence on God. Even the sign of ashes expresses that well; at the time of the imposition, we hear the words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”—sobering words, to be sure, yet words which are not intended as a threat but as a simple acknowledgement that all we are and all we have depends on God’s grace.
Of course in many ways our Sunday morning worship marks the season. The service is simplified, with the Hymn of Praise omitted. The color is purple, a symbol of penitence. At the reading of the gospel we do not sing “Alleluia” but “Return to the Lord your God” or some other Lenten acclamation. All our music is more subdued and reflective. In all these ways, we proclaim the season as a time set apart for some special emphases. It is a time for us all to “return to the Lord,” acknowledging our sin and yet trusting in his grace to renew us and draw us back into his loving embrace.