Introduction to 2015 Lenten Devotionals

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

“If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.” ― Frederick Buechner

  The theme I selected for this year’s Lenten devotionals is taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:33. In chapter six, Jesus is speaking about worry and he comes to his conclusion about worry by stating, we are to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” (v. 33) I became interested in exploring what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God or Heaven a couple of years ago and started to read, study, and collect information and notes about the kingdom.

  I work persistently for months to get these devotions done before the beginning of Lent. Each day I worked diligently and my work would keep getting bogged down. As my work progressed, I would find new avenues and ideas to explore, more scripture to read and study, and more references to study to understand particular ideas which would develop in my mind. Eventually, it came to me that God was trying to tell me something important. God seemed to say, “Lee, slow down don’t be too quick to get these devotionals done. Take the time to speak with me in prayer about the kingdom. I have many things to teach you along the way about the kingdom.” God was telling me they would get done in time, but at God’s choosing not mine.

  Lent for me over the years has become a special time for spiritual reflection and growth. For several years, I have written daily Lenten devotions, which I initially did only for my own personal Lenten journey. Then, around 1999, I started to share my devotions in a printed Lenten Prayer and Devotional Booklet, which I generally shared with whatever congregation I was serving at the time, if finances were available. The cost of printing a Lenten booklet eventually got too expense and I started sharing them on my blog, by e-mail and Facebook. So, please feel free to share these devotions with family, friends and neighbors.

  Lent is chiefly about growing in our love for God and our neighbor. Jesus teaches that these are the greatest of the commandments. To love is worth more than all of the offerings, sacrifices, and penitential practices that we could do for the next thousand years. But Jesus is not speaking of a cheap love. It is a love that we receive and give with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. Love is the main focus for our lives lived in the kingdom of God. This is truly Lent.

Lenten Devotional – Easter Sunday

Q. 100. What doth the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?

A. The preface of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, “Our Father which art in heaven,” teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others.

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)

“The difference with this prayer is that its ending tells us more about God than it does about us. It's a conclusion that voices confidence in the present and the future because it understands who is in charge and in whose presence we live all our lives.” - William J. Carl III, The Lord's Prayer for Today, President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

  Dr. Kenneth Bailey is a marvelous Middle Eastern scholar who lives in New Wilmington, PA and lived in the Middle East for many years to better understand the cultural background from which the New Testament was written. Dr. Bailey who had the brilliant idea of going around in these remote villages, and there he would tell them the parables of Jesus and get their reactions.

  One day Kenneth Bailey was sitting around with some sheep herders and farmers and he spun the tale of the prodigal son. He got to the part where the son goes to the father to ask for his share of the inheritance, and these men who were sitting around just doubled over with laughter. They thought that was the funniest thing they ever heard. They said, "In our village, that would never happen. The father would conk that boy on the head." Then the son goes away, sows his wild oats and comes back, and Kenneth Bailey told how the father, seeing him at a distance, ran to his son. The sense of the Scripture here is that the father sprinted to his son. It was here that the men became furious and even disgusted. They said, "This man had no dignity! For a man to run through the streets, his robe would kick up around his thighs; his legs would be exposed to the children. That would be shameful. He would be the laughingstock of his village. No father would run to his son. It would never happen." But, my friend, I'm here to tell you it happens every day whenever we pray, "Our Father who art in heaven." God comes running. God, the Father as described to us by Jesus does what no earthly father would do for us. God was willing to come in the flesh to reach out to us and tell how much he loves us, so we might have a restored relationship and enter into the Kingdom of God.

  What we call The Lord's Prayer is more properly called The Disciples' Prayer. Have you ever noticed that the perpendicular pronoun is missing from The Disciples' Prayer?

You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "I."
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "My."

Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for one another,
And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother.

For others are included ... in each and every plea,
From the beginning to the end of it, it does not once say "Me."

Lenten Devotional – Day 40

Q. 99. What rule hath God given for our direction in prayer?

A. The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called “the Lord’s Prayer.”

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” (Matt. 6:7-9)

Those who have prayed the Lord's Prayer with an open heart, as an act of humble discipleship, know that the prayer is powerful and even dangerous. In praying the Lord's Prayer we ask God to lead us down some risky and unfamiliar paths. Praying the Lord's Prayer compromises the sense of security we fumble to maintain within our own power. - Victoria Rebeck, The Christian Ministry, Jan-Feb 1995, 2.

  "Lord, teach us to pray!" So spoke the disciples to Jesus. In making this request, they confessed that they were not able to pray on their own, that they had to learn to pray. The phrase "learning to pray" sounds strange to us. If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never "learn" to pray. But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself.

  For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings - all of which the heart can do by itself - with prayer. And we confuse earth and heaven, man and God. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ. - James Burtness, Shaping The Future: The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 9.

  The archbishop of Canterbury wants kids to be taught the Lord's Prayer in school. In the U.S. at least, constitutional issues render that unlikely, at least as part of the official curriculum. But we don't need to wait, and, for our own kids at least, we don't need to leave it to the schools. Centuries ago, God told Israel, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." He then told the Israelite adults to not only "keep these words" themselves, but also to "Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise" (Deuteronomy 6:4-7). As Christians, we can do the same with the Lord's Prayer.

  Let's not overstate the case. Helping our kids know the Lord's Prayer isn't likely to turn the world around spiritually or be the start of a worldwide religious revival. But let's not understate the case either. The Lord's Prayer is a spiritual starting point, a way to reach out toward God when we're too numb, too much in pain, too blind, too angry, even too tired to do much else. Our kids and we will benefit from it, and God hears us when we pray it.

Lenten Devotional – Good Friday

Q. 98. What is prayer?

A. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (Psalm 62:8)

Prayer is not "going to God" (he's already in you), or "seeking God" (he's already found you), or "opening yourself to God" (you couldn't keep him out if you tried), or "becoming spiritual" (he's already sent you the Spirit -- who would rather show you Jesus than help you display your spiritual prowess). And it's certainly not buttering God up with abject apologies for your existence - because in his Beloved Son, he already thinks you're dandy. Prayer is just talking with Someone who's already talking to you. - Robert Farrar Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), 68.

  Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. That puts us in the "on-top" position, where we are competent and in control. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent... The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by it, we live by it as well. And we pray by it. - Richard J. Foster

  Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him. - William Barclay, The Plain Man's Book of Prayers

  We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The "Ah-h-h-h!" that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to ourselves, but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world.

Lenten Devotional – Maundy Thursday

Q. 96. What is the Lord’s Supper?

A. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Cor. 11:26)

"The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage. But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 66.

  The simple act of sitting down around a table is something a lot of people don't find particularly important - but for Christians, the shared supper is a vital aspect of spiritual life. The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord's Supper, and the final table fellowship in the kingdom of God. But in all three, the one thing that counts is that “their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” (Luke 23:31)

  This meal is provided, not because we have earned the right to eat and drink with Jesus, but simply as an act of divine love. For Presbyterians this divinely initiated meal is one of two sacraments of the church, instituted by God and commended by Christ. We are following in the tradition of the early church when we affirm three primal material elements of life - water, bread and wine - as the primary symbols of offering life to God. Being washed with the water of baptism, we receive new life in Christ. In eating the bread and drinking the cup offered by God, our memory of the promises are made present by the Holy Spirit.

  “The Lord's Supper is a sacrament of continuous growth, nourishment and new life. In our Reformed tradition participation in this sacrament should follow the sacrament of baptism. Just as humans need food and drink for nurture and sustenance, Calvin wrote that the Holy Meal is God's way of providing for our maintenance during the whole course of our lives after we have been received into God's family. Both sacraments provide a visible, in fact a graphic, way of presenting God's promises.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Fellowship of the Table” Life Together, p. 66-69

Lenten Devotional – Day 37

Q. 95. To whom is Baptism to be administered?

A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible Church, till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible Church are to be baptized.

“Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” (Acts 2:38-39)

“In the Waters of baptism we are reminded that we are not born in a vacuum, nor do we journey entirely alone (although loneliness is often part of the burden). Being reborn, being made alive, involves being born into a community. So there are strings attached to this adventure.” - Alan W. Jones, Journey into Christ

  The apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1:13, “He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” It’s an interesting verse to look at because of its language.

  There’s movement here. People who are being saved leave one place and journey to another. Only, according to Paul’s language, it isn’t the travelers who make the arrangements and undertake the journey. Someone else, God, picks the travelers up and drops them down in their new location, the Kingdom of God which God has prepared for them now and into eternity. It’s all about crossing a border, but it isn’t like any other border crossing we’ve ever experienced. The difference is that, in the case of God’s border crossing, the traveler has little to do with it. It’s God’s initiative, from beginning to end.

  We could never make the journey on our own. We depend on the good offices of others to bring us there. When Presbyterians speak of baptism as a covenant, we emphasize the multiple commitments involved. First and most basic, there is God's commitment to us. Then there are the commitments the community of faith makes to us. Finally, are the commitments we make to God, to our children, and to the church. That is why we echo Calvin's own two-sided treatment of baptism's gracious character when it says:

  Baptism enacts and seals what the Word proclaims: God's redeeming grace offered to all people. Baptism is God's gift of grace and also God's summons to respond to that grace. Baptism calls to repentance, to faithfulness, and to discipleship. Baptism gives the church its identity and commissions the church for ministry to the world.

Lenten Devotional – Day 36

Q. 94. What is Baptism?

A. Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, does signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord’s.

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal. 3:27)

  Whenever the church baptizes anyone, it is a radical and controversial thing we do. There is an ancient tradition that goes, "When you save the life of a person, when you rescue them from drowning or death, you are bound to them forever." That is what we do in baptism: we have saved this person's life; we have claimed the person for Christ. Now, we have a relationship with that person that can be neglected or abused, but never broken. In moments of despair and doubt and desolation, Martin Luther would say to himself as a reminder, "I was baptized."

  Baptism is neither a ticket to heaven nor a magic charm to keep us out of harm’s way. Rather, we called to work at sustaining our identity as the baptized becoming the sons and daughters of God. The Westminster Larger Catechism speaks of “the needful but much neglected duty of improving our Baptism… all our lifelong” (7.277). As John Calvin put it, “baptism is the sign of the initiation by which we are received into the society of the church, in order that, engrafted in Christ, we may be reckoned among God’s children.” The power of baptism is lifelong.

  Baptism, as a sacrament, is an outward visible “sign” that attests to God’s gracious goodwill toward us. Calvin indicates that sacraments are “testimonies of grace and salvation from the Lord.” The principalities and powers have suffered ultimate defeat through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they are still at work in the world. Baptism plunges believers into a situation where the old has passed away “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17), although the old can still afflict, perplex, persecute, or strike down (2 Cor. 4:7-18). The present reality of alienation, brokenness, and injustice demonstrates the gap and tension between our world and the fullness of the reign of God.

  Baptism links believers with the death as well as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, disciples of Jesus Christ and the faith communities where they participate share in his suffering and self-giving ministry (cf. Phil. 3:10). They are called to live into their baptism, to learn daily how to die and thus how to live. As such, baptism goes far beyond the private salvation of the individual soul or the isolated moment of baptism. It forms a new humanity by incorporating believers into the body of Jesus Christ and beginning their formation as a missionary people. We are not simply a single, lone individual claimed by God in baptism we are the body of Christ who are the baptized together as a covenant people working together as a missional people.