Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As I write on Wednesday, Christians across the globe are having the cross smeared in ashes on their foreheads as Lent begins. For those of us in the more quirky, informal branches of God’s family, Lent can appear to be a depressing season of guilt-ridden austerity for sombre legalists. Yet this ancient practice of taking 40 days to walk together as the global church to prepare for Easter, offers us a special time to reset our relationship with God, the world and ourselves.
Traditionally Lent calls Christians to three practices listed in Matt 6:1-18:
Fasting, prayer and giving.
Each of these are intended to prise our grip from off the world and to fasten our attention to Jesus, our treasure in heaven (Matt 6:19-20). So Lent is a great season to fast, pray and reconsider how we are investing our finances and resources in kingdom mission.
Lent invites us to journey with Jesus, downward from heaven to earth and from the Jordan to Jerusalem and the cross and resurrection. So, why not take time over these next 6 weeks to reread the gospel story or read Bear Grylls’ great retelling of the story of Jesus in his book “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
We are hoping that you might join the journey at QPBC by reading our weekly Blog and Vlogs (short social-media videos) exploring some key moments in the gospels’ life of Jesus.
And…Look forward to some guest bloggers!
We begin in the water with Jesus. Just as the ashes on foreheads speak of the flaws and failures of our humanity so the baptism performed by John the Baptist (see Mark 1:4-12) called people to admit their offences and to seek repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
So, it is most strange to see Jesus, the perfect and Holy Son of God offering Himself to be immersed in the Jordan by John. John himself picks this up saying “you should be baptising me!” ( Matt 3:14)
Yet right at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus shows why He came. He came to identify with the sins of His own people and all humanity. In the Jordan river with John the baptiser by His side, He is actually and literally standing in the place of sinners, He stands in solidarity with humanity in the place of our most heinous crimes and wicked motivations.
Irenaeus of Lyons put it like this:
‘He became what we are so that we might become what He is’
Not gods but partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). The greatest story ever told begins as God embodies Himself in the deepest parts of our damaged humanity, more than sympathy He comes as the only one sufficient to procure our release from death to life.