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Lent -- It Takes Your Breath Away! Some events can only take your breath away as you marvel at the implications and consequences of those events. Such is the case when we consider the true meaning and repercussions of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. That is the purpose of Lent. We begin the Lent journey on Ash Wednesday. We gather together for worship to remember how the life of the Child born on Christmas turned out. He died on the cross for our sins, which we commemorate with ashes upon our forehead – ashes that symbolize our sin, the death sin brings, and the grief that settles upon our souls as the result. But we do not stay there. We remember with joy the wonder of new life found in the resurrection of Jesus – a resurrection victory shared in the Sacrament of Holy Communion through forgiveness of sin. And then the journey continues. Each week we explore a new aspect, a new insight, a new detail that flows from the implications and consequences of the events of Good Friday and Easter. It is an old, old story. Yet there is something ever new, ever more profound, ever more hopeful for us as we remember and share with each other. The Lent journey comes to a staggering climax in a three-part worship experience from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday, a worship event with a classic three-part structure. Maundy Thursday ends with a hopeful start as the church commemorates a meal established by Jesus that has been continuously celebrated, just about every day, ever since. Then comes the subdued and overwhelming end of the second part – Jesus dies on a cross and is buried, presumably having lost all. Yet there is an air of hope as Jesus proclaims in a cry of victory, "It is finished!" We celebrate what He finished on Easter morning – when we sing of the end of sin’s reign of terror, the demise of Satan, and the upending of death through the resurrection of the Son of God. Lent is a special time of the year for you. A time to remember. A time to grow. A time to recharge. It is a time for self-examination. A time for honesty. A time for a renewed start. It is a time filled with peace in the cross, forgiveness in the nail-scarred hands of the Savior, and life through an empty grave. The Lent journey is your time. With God. And with His church. The following is the schedule of events for Lent and Easter in 2012. We wish you God’s richest blessings in Christ Jesus as you follow Him from Calvary to the heights of heaven itself.
Lent 2012
Jesus – The Servant of God
Lent is about you. While the focus is on Jesus, it is really about you. He suffered in your place. He was rejected by His people and God so that you would never be rejected. He endured the torments of hell to spare you its horrors. He died to prepare your grave so that one day you would share in His resurrection and empty your grave forever.
Jesus is God’s special Servant, the only One who could do such grand things for you. He is the suffering Servant of Isaiah described in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. Each verse in this amazing prophecy revealed 700 hundred years before Jesus came into this world could have just as easily been written of Jesus after His death, so startling and crystal clear is the testimony of this passage to events of Christ’s life and death. As we gather in worship to remember and rejoice in our Savior this Lent, we recall the words of this passage and their application to our lives.
Midweek Lent worship services take place at Peace on Wednesdays, 12:00 noon and 7:00 p.m. May your Lenten journey be one of great personal growth in the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ash Wednesday
February 22
God’s Perfect Servant Isa 52:13-15: 13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness— 15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Jesus comes as God’s perfect Servant to do for us what we cannot do. He comes to live in God’s will and to die in our place so that death is swallowed up in victory.
Lent 2
February 29
A Regular Person Isa 53:1-2: 1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
Jesus comes to live as a regular person. His attraction is not His charisma or good looks, but His perfect soul and perfect life that saves sinners.
Lent 3
March 7
Despised and Rejected by Men Isa 53:3: 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus comes as the best news from God ever. Yet He is despised and rejected by those He came to save.
Lent 4
March 14
Stricken by God Isa 53:4: 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
Jesus comes to serve God. Strangely, part of that service means He must be rejected by God Himself...so that sinners will not be rejected but received with open arms!
Lent 5
March 21
Every Sin Laid Upon Him for Us Isa 53:5-6: 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Jesus comes to suffer, not only physically, but incredibly – and wondrously – the eternal suffering of the soul. Through His suffering sinners are not only forgiven, but healed with peace.
Lent 6
March 28
Our Death Defeated Isa 53:7-9: 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Jesus comes to die, the only One ever made specifically to die. Yet His death is the one that overcomes death, so that all who die in Him never die.
Maundy Thursday
April 5
The Lamb of God! Isa 53:10-12
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Jesus comes as the perfect Lamb of God, envisioned by the Passover Sacrifice during the Exodus of God’s people from slavery and death in Egypt. He is the final guilt offering whose shared Body and Blood continues to give us the final and complete victory over sin, death and Satan.
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