The Christian season of Lent is a forty-day period, excluding Sundays, in which Christ followers join Jesus on his forty-day fast, spiritually walking in his footsteps. Lent is a season of repentance and spiritual self-examination. It is a time to draw near to Christ, and a time when we recall our brokenness and mortality. This allows us to appreciate the blessings that come on Good Friday and Easter, when Christ dies for us and then is raised to life. (Adam Hamilton, The Way)
Gracious and loving God, who took the horror of what we did to your Child and turned it into new life: hear our prayer this morning. We have chosen the world’s cares over your Child’s easy yoke. We have looked for smooth paths, when your Child would have led us over difficult ones. We have hidden our faces from you. Holy One, remind us: You who raise Jesus from the dead can raise us to new life. Bring healing to our broken places, bring your peace to our anger and our fear, and bring your tender mercy to us, that we might know ourselves forgiven and ready to begin again. – Jane O. Sorenson
Joe Pennel on Easter:
The hope of Easter is directed toward God who is able to bring life from death. At the resurrection, the community comes to life again, the scattered are reassembled, the disillustioned become full of faith, the frightened become fearless, and those who denied and deserted are forgiven. The hope of Easter is that some day time will be shot through with grace upon grace, and God’s promises will shape creation’s great conclusion.
