4th Day of Lent - A Day Late

Normally I wont be posting on Sundays, as Sundays are not part of Lent, but since I was traveling yesterday I didn't get a chance to post.

One of the things we have to be careful of while we journey through Lent is the temptation to get lost in our brokenness and miss out on the victory. That's why it is good once a week, on Sunday, to exit Lent for a short time and celebrate the resurrection. We are sorry for our sin, and for our failures, but we also celebrate the reality that the Christ has offered Himself up for us as a sacrifice for our sins. He has defeated sin by His death, and the power of death has been broken, because God, The Father, has raised Jesus back up from the dead.

This past week as I sat in, what really boiled down to, a systematic theology conference, I was shocked in some moments about the negativity with which a few people view things. Some of them even seem to doubt that in the end the Christ will return and that there will be a great resurrection. (To be fair systematic theologians view things in far more complicated views, but you get my point.) This same kind of negativity could infect us during Lent. That is not to say that we shouldn't reflect on sin and failure, nor that we shouldn't engage in the difficult journey through the wilderness. However, we must always remember that Christ frees us from sin and that we are forgiven. Reflection and repentance is one thing, getting bogged down in the mire of despair is quite another, and seems to me to be the antithesis of faith. So, let us be repentant and reflective, but also people of joy.

PEACE