TONIGHT! ASH WEDNESDAY WORSHIP GATHERING
IN-PERSON & ONLINE I 7:00PM
Dear Crossroads Friends,
Today we begin our Lenten journey. For the next several weeks, we will walk behind Jesus as he slowly winds his way toward Jerusalem, where his death becomes an opening to paradise.
This season is a time (40 days excluding Sundays) believers of Jesus set aside for fasting, confession and repentance marked by an intentional focus on the Jesus' life, ministry, sacrifice and resurrection.
This year our theme and focus is "Into the Wilderness." We will explore Jesus's journey into the wilderness and the temptations he overcame.
This year, I wonder if God’s invitation might be to embrace the unknown so that God’s resurrection power might be known among us. After struggling to survive the pandemic and all of its disruptions, it is easy to forget the state of helplessness, disorientation, and weakness we all felt (and some still feel).
What if, instead of leaping over the things that overwhelm or frighten us, we could speak the truth about those with God and one another? You are invited to deepen your discipleship by confessing your need for God. Where do you need God to see you, and hear you? Where do you need God to kneel next to you? What griefs are you carrying that you could hold with gentleness, just like Jesus does with his own grief?
The Apostle Paul Paul teaches us: this way of deepening our discipleship is the exact way that others will see the life of Jesus, and want to follow him with us. In order to make new disciples in the resurrection power of God, we must continue being put to death. Or as Paul himself says: we are those who “always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body” (2 Cor 4:10).
With love and joy,
Pastor Charles Newman | 
No comments:
Post a Comment