When we hear this story of Jesus and the sinful woman, how many of us get stuck thinking not of the great depth of mercy that Christ showed, but “What was Jesus writing on the ground?” He was being challenged by people of authority, and he bends down and writes something. What did he write? (more…)
When a new friend or coworker asks, what are you doing this weekend, how many of us think to say, “I’m going to Church” as the first thing. It’s the most important thing we do all week, but for some reason, we may not always share that truth about ourselves as often as we could. It may be that we are hesitant to admit our need for God. But we do have a great need for God and also for his grace. The grace of God is like food. We hunger for it in our lives. It is also an inheritance, like the prodigal son who received an inheritance from his father. (more…)
Have we ever wondered, what converts a human heart toward goodness? What opens a soul to God? Witnessing love. The scripture reveals, witnessing God’s love is what inspires us to respond to God more completely. During this time of Lent we are asked to become more available to God, to allow our relationship with Christ to deepen. Why should we? Because of the incredible love which Christ has shown us. In the last two weeks, the Church has chosen wonderful readings from both the old and new testaments to help soften our hearts toward Christ.
We make choices and perform actions which affect us both now and in the future. What we do gives things and people power over us. Consider the pilgrims of our country. Before they had their own government, England had power over them; to make laws and enforce laws but without representation where the laws were being made. They chose to take that power away from England, to reject taxation without representation, and to form a new nation. And so we see, that with our actions we have the ability to take power away from one thing and give it to something which represents us better. Lent is the time to take power back from the world, from its control over us, and give that power back to God.
We like it when God makes promises to us. We know that he can keep them. Today’s promise is this; if we go out into the Lenten desert with Christ, we will return stronger than before.