Category: From Lent to Easter 2024

These are posts written during Lent 2024

Beginning the Journey: Lenten Practices

“That he may remain faithful to his Baptism, living by it, making it always the source and the power of his life, a constant judgment, criterion, inspiration, ‘rule of life.’” (Schmemann)

As we prepare for Lent it’s good to return to this thought that Lent is a spiritual journey which begins with acknowledging both our mortality and our sin nature and ends with celebrating the Easter feast! As we travel, we need to keep this idea in mind that we are called to remain faithful to our baptisms. As Schmemann writes, he sees  baptism as a rule of life, a measure of how deeply we need to hold onto our dying and our rising in Christ. There are practices that help us practice both dying and living the new life. Sometimes these practices are called spiritual disciplines, but for a few reasons I believe practice is a better description of what we do than discipline. The reason for that from my perspective is that discipline implies sheer effort on the part of the one engaging in the disciplines and reduces the role of the indwelling Spirit to help us walk that out. It’s easy with Lenten disciplines (or spiritual disciplines in all seasons) to set the high mark and then see it as a “law” that must be kept. Paul stresses that we “died to the law” so that we might live to God. He continues:

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

Galatians 2:20

I don’t want to minimize the place of effort on our parts to stay centered in Christ. In many ways, the difference between spiritual practice and spiritual discipline is semantic but my own bias leans toward the idea that spiritual practices come forth from the abiding nature of our relationship with Christ. If the concept of disciplines aids you on this journey, go for it!

This post finds us somewhat late to the party (although Lent doesn’t start until tomorrow – for Western Christians) in terms of deciding what spiritual practices God is calling us to. I personally need to take the time to be intentional about this. I need the time to pray and listen to the Holy Spirit on what practices will help me continue both to live out my baptism and to be prepared for all that will come in Holy Week!

Here are some questions that help me do that:

  1. What spiritual practices are you drawn to and why?
  1. What practices or disciplines are you resistant to? A strong reaction to a practice (like fasting) may reveal an area of brokenness that you need to seek healing for. So my encouragement would be: press into that – bring it to prayer, seek out prayer from a trusted friend or pastoral partner.
  1. What practices do you feel God showing you that would address weaknesses in your character?
  1. Do you have a plan for failure?

Another question I have used in the past is this prayer: “Lord, what is the grace You desire to deepen in me over these next 40 days?”

The place for me to start then is intentionality. I need to plan. But then I also need to make this truly a spiritual practice. We are tempted to enter Lent solely with the question we ask of ourselves or others – “what are you giving up for Lent?” I am amazed to hear this question coming from people who have no spiritual reason to fast. It’s just something people do during this time of the year.

We need as well to know how we will handle failure!  What Alexander Schmemann says about fasting here is true of any spiritual practice we take on: “…After all this is said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting, it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt, and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight, and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight, and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith. No progress in Christian life is possible, alas, without the bitter experience of failures.” (Great Lent: 103-104)

We cannot keep our promises without the reality that Christ dwells in us. We need the power of Christ within – the working of the Holy Spirit- to be the kind of people God calls us to be. It’s as if we need to carry Christmas (the Incarnation) into our observance of Lent, and on into our journey to Resurrection Sunday.

We are cracked pots (2 Cor 4:7) – and Lent reminds us again that we are woefully inadequate in our own strength – not merely to enter into the fasts of Lent – but to be loving and forgiving and gracious people. Is this not the fast God chooses for us? – Micah 6:8 – “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

So, as we take up this journey may we keep faith with the promises we’ve made, but may we also realize that the truest promise we can keep is the one that draws on His indwelling power to love, to be humble and to serve. Perhaps these words of Paul can be the encouragement you need in this season!

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us…. [we are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.”

2 Corinthians 4:7-10

This life of Christ that is manifested in our bodies is a life rooted in love, mercy, justice and grace.

I will write more about specific practices in following posts but you might want to consider these: fasting (from food, social media, screen…), silence, solitude, sacrifice; and these practices Dallas Willard called disciplines of engagement: study, memorization, confession, service…

My desire both for myself and for you is that we enter Lent with a cleansed and ready heart to walk with Jesus from the desert to the Cross to the Resurrection.

The Lord’s Prayer – Preparing for Lent

Our Father, who art in heaven, 
Hallowed be thy name. 
Thy kingdom come; thy will be done. 
On earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day, our daily bread, 
And forgive us our sins, 
As we forgive those who have sinned against us.  
And lead us not into temptation. 
But deliver us from evil. 
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, 
And the glory, forever. Amen. 

Dear Holy Father, we pray that our hearts would be fully ready to walk this path from the desert to the Resurrection. Our one desire Lord is that your kingdom would come in full, that we would take our place there as we reclaim our baptisms. Your kingdom and Your will are our heart’s desire. Father, as we remember the waters of our baptisms, would You give us Your bread, Your life, Your Resurrection power that is the only true sustenance we need. Teach us Lord, how to ask and how to receive Your forgiveness and to freely forgive those who have hurt or wounded or betrayed us. Test us not, O Lord, but deliver us from evil. To You alone, Father, Son and Spirit is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Living Out Our Baptisms – Confessional Prayer

[C.S.] Lewis stressed the act of confession and the reception of pardon as a most important and objective act, and was on his guard against those “states of feeling” that would make of this most important act a merely subjective thing. It seemed to him that a “programme of permanent emotions,” about ourselves could turn even the act of our confession into a mere state of “feeling” about ourselves. 

Leanne Payne, “Real Presence”

Start by centering your heart in God’s presence… Give thanks to Him that He through His baptism began the process of fully identifying with us so that He could offer his life for ours.  Affirm that He is faithful and good, and his mercy and grace are “new every morning.” The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23).

 Now let Him begin the process of searching your heart. Are there ways you have not honored Christ this week? Are there ways you have failed to live out your baptism? Where were your thoughts and desires not centered in Him? How have you failed in obedience to Christ?

Then, simply confess specifically what the Holy Spirit is showing you. Don’t rush through this process. Simply rest in God’s presence as He does this.

Now choose to let this go and receive the truth of this passage: “I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Let him lead me to the banquet hall and let his banner over me be love”. If you have confessed a stronghold of fear or complacency receive Christ’s forgiveness for you. Remember – “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

And finally commit this confession to the Lord. As you rest in his grace and mercy ask Him how to walk this out. Ask for the supernatural power of His Spirit to give you what you need to move forward. Thank Him that you “have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer [you] who live, but Christ lives in [you]” (Gal. 2:20).

Lectio Divina – Living Out Our Baptisms

A reminder about prayer and the Word of God: “All of a sudden we just know: prayer is a conversation in which God’s Word has the initiative and we, for the moment, can be nothing more than listeners. The essential thing is for us to hear God’s Word and discover how to respond to Him.” Hans von Balthasar

Romans 6:3-8 (ESV) 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

 Step One – Read the passage slowly, attentively. Allow yourself to be taken in by the words – pay attention to any word or phrase that strikes you in the passage. (If you haven’t studied this passage, you may find this first reading will stir observation questions in you – such as who, what when, where, how).

Step Two – Read it again. Meditate and reflect on the passage. What is it in your life that needs to hear that word or phrase? Sit in silence for a time, attending to the thoughts, images and impressions that begin to come to you. Turn that into prayer.

Step Three – What is God saying to you? What do you begin to feel called to?

Step Four – How does God want you to live this passage out? What are you resolved to do?

Lectio Quote

When we begin to understand that baptism does something to us now, and that that something is nothing short of incorporation into the divine life of God, then we can begin to experience the Trinity, not as some kind of mathematical puzzle – or a scientific experiment using water, ice, and steam showing that each of them is the same chemical but simply in a different form. Rather, we will know the doctrine of the Trinity as a lived reality. By our baptism we are invited not merely to understand, but to experience the Trinity.  Brother James Koester

The Beginning of Our Lenten Journey

“A journey, a pilgrimage! Yet, as we begin it, as we make the first step into the “bright sadness” of Lent, we see – far away—the destination. It is the joy of Easter; it is the entrance into the glory of the kingdom. And it is this vision, the foretaste of Easter that makes Lent’s sadness bright and our Lenten effort a “spiritual spring.” The night may be long and dark, but all the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon.” (Alexander Schmemann)

Just as Advent was a journey to the Incarnation of Christ, so is Lent a journey to Easter. When Schmemann talks about the “bright sadness” of Lent he speaks of the tension between the walk and the journey’s end. In the walk to Easter, we begin with the temptation of Christ in the desert, and it’s there we embark on our own journey as we contemplate our sins and moral failures. Yet there is a dawn! There on the horizon waits our Savior risen in His glory! I often think about how my daily life seems so myopic, so restricted to the cares and concerns of my daily life – with its struggles, with its pains and with its sins. Just a few days ago, my husband and I were driving through the West Virginia mountains. It was early morning, and the fog was dense. But as the sun rose, we caught glimpses of these magnificent mountains surrounding us on the road. I remember looking up and seeing those massive hills and the sun was just barely rising on the horizon. I found great peace in looking up and out at the beauty and just letting my eyes rest in their greatness. Lent is like that – It’s a somber journey as we follow Christ through the desert and through all the ways he endured suffering for us. Our journey is a return from the far countries of our sins and excesses.

“It’s the walk back from the pigsties of our personal ‘far countries,’ where we feed on mere food and pleasure, in diminishing returns, to the house of the Father, who always, always, seems to meet us more than halfway down the road.”

Touchstone Magazine

But to return to Schmemann’s language of “bright sadness” it’s the dawn on the horizon that makes that sadness bright! It’s the resurrection of our Lord, and the promise of our own resurrections that spur us on! 

In many traditions of the Church both now and in the early church, new adult converts to the faith would spend the season of Lent preparing for their baptisms on Easter Sunday. This was a season of learning and discernment that they were ready to be fully initiated in the faith. As well, baptized Christians were given the exhortation to re-affirm their own baptisms. And that is what I propose for us to do this Lent. As we make our way to Easter, we look to our baptism promises and re-affirm them. What a season to turn our hearts back to the Lord, what a season to remember the journey home from the far country!  

Father Schmemann refers to baptism as a “rule of life.” I suggest that we take up his exhortation here and do jut that for Lent – that we let our baptisms be the measure of our becoming as Christ would call us to. May it be the source and power of our lives! 

“…to remain faithful to his baptism, living by it, making it always the source and power of his life, a constant judgment, criterion, inspiration, ‘rule of life’.”

Alexander Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit

Our re-affirmation includes the following promises:

  • That we have renounced Satan and all his ways
  • That we have turned from our own ways and from sin
  • That my allegiance is to Christ and that I have chosen to walk in all his ways
  • That I will look to the Holy Spirit to empower me to continue to live out my baptism and to equip me for all good deeds to the glory of Christ’s kingdom.

This promise to God sets us on the path toward Easter but it also sets us on the path to further maturity and formation in Christ.  It might be reframed in a simple way by asking the question when we wake up every morning: “How shall I live out my baptism today?” Take a moment now and bring that question before the Lord. Ask the Holy Spirit to form in you truth that remains, truth that goes deep into your soul.  Ask Him to reveal the Father, Son and Spirit to you this Lenten season. In Christ’s baptism we see the fullness of the Trinity – the voice of the Father, and the appearance of the Holy Spirit and of course the Son immersed in the waters of baptism. In our own baptisms we can also know and receive the fullness of God – in His revelation of the Himself as the Three in One. There are unlimited areas of grace that God can renew in us.

As we go through Lent there are certain practices we can take part in that will help us in practical ways. I’ll write more on that soon.

But this is where our journey begins. It begins with water – and the references in the Old Testament speak to the power of water. The Catholic catechism says this: “If water springing up from the earth symbolizes life, the water of the sea is a symbol of death and so can represent the mystery of the cross. By this symbolism Baptism signifies communion with Christ’s death.” So, we look to the crossing of the Red Sea as the beginning of the liberation of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, and thus our own liberation; we look to the Jordan river as the water of the promised land for Israel and eternal life for us given by the Father through the Son!

In Paul’s letters we see that he constantly speaks the language of baptism. (I urge you to read Paul looking for the language of death and life, and baptism. In every letter but two (1 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy) his writings declare that we who have faith in Christ have died to sin and have been raised with Christ. Paul has turned the experiences of the Christian life and made them theological truth. A language of sanctification emerges then which gives voice to how we are called to live our lives. Lent affords us the opportunity to study the Scriptures and be renewed and strengthened by them in this concrete way. Take Paul’s words here in Romans and write them on your hearts – “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”   Romans 6:4

St Gregory of Nazianzus calls baptism “God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift. . .. We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift.

It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; 

Grace since it is given even to the guilty; 
Baptism because sin is buried in the water; 
Anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; 
Enlightenment because it radiates light; 
Clothing since it veils our shame; 
Bath because it washes; and 
Seal as it is our guard and the sign of God’s Lordship. 
(St. Gregory Of Nazianzus, Oratio 40,3-4:PG 36,361C.)

My invitation to you friends, is that we immerse ourselves (pun intended) in the beauty of the baptismal waters. If you have strayed, or simply forgotten, Lent affords us this opportunity – to remember the power of what Christ has done in and with us. May we encourage each other with this truth. In fact, I would encourage you to invite someone else into your Lenten journey. Share it, speak of it, live it, receive it. Amen.