Three Ways Lent Accelerates Your Growth in Grace

Did you know that Lent means springtime?

Lush leaves and colorful flowers die in the fall, but bud and live again in the spring.

Christians from all cultures customarily celebrate Lent as a 40 day spiritual season of accelerated growth.

Why 40 days?

Because Lent follows the events of the life of Jesus which began when he was tempted by Satan for 40 days.

But how can this Lenten season accelerate our growth in grace?

During Lent, spiritual growth is accelerated as we

Give up

     Take up

         And show up.

First, why would giving up anything accelerate growth?

I had a friend in high school who gave up eating chocolate and meat during Lent and I thought “what a downer!”

But then I realized that Jesus had to give up food and all the comforts of life when he went into the wilderness.

He learned that good resources like food, friends and fun cannot be relied on as ultimate satisfiers. 

In the wilderness he unfastened his deepest desires from stuff and fastened his heart on the living words of His father.

What about you?  Would you consider giving up a food, beverage, or practice that your heart has become addicted to?

Fasting was a common practice among God’s people. (Exodus 34:38; 2 Sam. 12:16; 1 Kings 19:8; Ps. 35:13; Joel 1:14; Jon. 3:5)

Will it hurt?  Of course! 

When you rely on a good thing that has become an ultimate thing-- and then disconnect from it—ouch!

But during those 40 days, Jesus connected to his father and grew in intimacy like never before.

Secondly, we accelerate our growth by taking up.

How about taking up a new spiritual practice for 40 days? 

During the 40 days leading up to Easter, many Christians have taken up and reflected upon Lenten readers.

These are short meditations, written by brothers and sisters in Christ, to assist you in savoring the events in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Why would Christians write, distribute and then read these meditations together?

Because this was the time of the year when new believers in Christ were learning the basics of the Christian story before their public baptism on Easter Sunday.

As a show of support, everyone in the church family would read along with the new believers preparing for baptism.

Everyone took up the practice of remembering what Jesus had done to save them from their sins.

Give up, take up, and lastly show up if you want to accelerate your growth in grace.

Ever notice that some people at church slowly drift away from worship services and small groups?

Life is crazy busy and all of our hearts are “prone to wander.”

During lent, leaders, along with the whole church family seek out those that have drifted away.

Drifters are warmly welcomed back into the church family with open arms of grace.

The drifters, overwhelmed by mercy, kindness and grace, begin to show up again for worship of the living God.

Remember, it’s the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. (Romans 2:4)

Is there a person that you love and have lost touch with in our church family?

How about showing up in their life with a text message, a call, or an in-person visit as you invite them back into the throbbing life of the church?

Or maybe you have drifted during the fall and winter seasons and desire fresh buds of life.  It’s time to remember your vows and reconnect to Christ. 

It’s time to return and show up and soon we’ll all shout “He is risen” on that climactic last day of Lent.

Imagine the growth in grace we’ll experience when we all

          Give up

                    Take up

                              And show up.

Because of the risen Christ,

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

How the Cat in the Hat Taught me a Thing or Two about Grace

Do you remember the first time you heard the opening words from Dr. Seuss’ zany “The Cat in the Hat?”

The sun did not shine

It was too wet to play

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day

I sat there with Sally

We sat there, we two

And I said “How I wish

We had something to do.”

Theodor Seuss Geisel once told Parent magazine “I think [children] have a breadth of understanding but not a depth of understanding. They know more things about what is going on in the world but not what… they’re about.”

As I a Christian, I can’t help but read his stories through grace-colored glasses and notice deeper realities.

Did you know that when Dr. Seuss was working on his doctorate in English at Oxford he made a surprising proposal? 

He asked the Oxford University Press to publish a modern edition of the famous Christian poem Paradise Lost.  He told them that if they would publish it, he would illustrate it.

Sadly, they turned him down. 

My hunch is that he went on to publish his own poems and parables (over 60 books!) to illustrate the Christian story of Grace. 

For instance, I think “The Cat in the Hat” hides a subtext of grace under the silly surface.  See if you agree.

Let’s walk through the whacky, whimsical story and notice a few playful parallels to God’s story of grace: 

The story begins, it has its genesis, with a boy and a girl, who are stuck, alone at home, with “nothing to do” on a rainy day.

Hmmm….   Sound familiar?

The Christian’s origin story of grace begins with Adam and Eve, a boy and a girl, who are stuck in the garden of grace after their distrust of God.

There is nothing they could possibly “do” to change the climate of their wet, sunless, cold, disconnected-from-God condition.

Sure they could sew fig leaves

And try hard to hide blame

But fig leaves soon will wilt

And soon both did feel shame

All they could “do” was to

               Sit

                              Sit

                                             Sit

                                                            Sit (in their sinful condition)

And they did not like it

not one little bit!

And here’s where the story has its first trace of grace.

Unbidden, a cat bumps and barges through the door of their imprisoned condition.

He makes a gracious promise to them before they “do” anything:

“We can have fun that is funny.”

But before the children have a chance to trust the cat, a fearful fish shouts the following:

No No, make that cat go away

Tell that cat in the hat

You do not want to play.

Grace, (says Presbyterian pastor J. Greschem Machen) is the very center and core of the whole Bible-the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign.

The fish knows full well

if the kids find free favor

they willl have to give up

their self-saving behavior

The cat calmly responds to the fearful fish with the following words:
 

Now! Now! Have no fear

Have no fear said the cat

My tricks are not bad

Said the cat in the hat.

The cat begins to play a game called “up, up, up with a fish” and the fish fearfully replies “put me down, I do not wish to fall.”

But the cat repeats “do not fear” (something Jesus said very often!) again and does something preposterous:

The cat takes many items in the house (a cup, a cake, the fish, books, a rake, a toy ship….) and after balancing on a ball himself takes a fall!

Christ fell in our cold world

full of cakes, rakes, and fish

He fell far from his Father

To serve grace on a dish

The cat refuses to leave the messy house and opens a red, wooden box with two “things” inside.

(Am I the only one who doesn’t think it is coincidental that the box is RED and WOODEN as Seuss illustrated it?  Might it not be pointing to the blood of Christ and the cross?)

Grace teaches us a thing or two.

Thing One:  A common (used over 200 times!) Old Testament word for grace is “Henna.”  It connotes favor from a good king, given freely to an undeserving inferior.

Thing Two:  A second common Old Testament word for grace is “Hesed.”  It pops off the pages 240 times and means God’s one-way, unshakable, loyal love, mercy and compassion toward rebellious sinners (C.f. Ps. 36:7).

When we find God’s free favor

In the midst of our sin

We must open the red box

For two things are within

When those kids allow the two things free reign, the situation gets even messier!

And, as you know, the story climaxes with the mother (mom’s do NOT like messes!) of the children coming home and the children are scared about the mess mom will find.

The law of God exposes our sinful condition.  Just as a mother is good, so too, the law is good.

But the law cannot clean up our condition.

But your mother will come

She will find this big mess!

And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall

We cannot pick it up there is no way at all.

Grace resolves the crisis!

The cat bursts through the door and took upon himself all the mess.

With a favor-filled “tip of the hat” he left the house in a clean condition.

Free from accusation!

The story ends with the mom asking “what did you do?”

Don’t miss this probing question:  “What did you DO?

The children know that they did nothing but play and have fun and receive free grace.

They wonder if they should tell their mom “what went ON there that day.”

They have no report of what they did to deal with their wet, cold, sunless day.

But they do know something went ON.

Someone came ON the scene of their hopeless situation and everything changed.

Now with grace on the scene

Pouring free from God’s vat

Christ comes near to our need

Like the cat in the hat.

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Christmas is Only for People with Autism

He was born in the Christmas month, but the following Christmas, when he wasn’t talking at the “normal” time, our family knew something was wrong.

My brother has an extreme disability the doctor’s label as autism.

               And so do I, but I’m a master at pulling the curtains to hide the backstage of my life so that you only see the up-front illusion of my abilities.

You see, my brother is the cracked, disabled one. 

I’m the righteous and responsible one with abilities from A-Z.

Or so I thought, until I met the Jesus of Christmas…

The cold, clinical description of autism goes like this: (If we peeked behind the curtain of your heart would you have it too, I wonder?)

               A person with autism has four identifying marks:

• An abnormal absorption with the self
• Social interaction marked by communication disorders
• A short attention span
• An inability to treat others as people

Scratch the veneer off of my superficial merit and you’ll see these same four markers expressing the messy me.

I spend so much of my time as the center and circumference of my own personal docudrama.

I’m abnormally absorbed with myself.

Do you see yourself as the both the director and leading star of your own drama?  Pretty tiring huh? 

I miscommunicate, misunderstand, and misjudge.  I have a communication disorder.

I allow such small and seemingly insignificant events and expectations immense power over my emotional life.

Do you listen well and always seek to understand another?

I have a short attention…….uh…what was I just talking about….span?

Do you struggle with external digital and social distractions? 

That’s just the precipice of the problem. 

What about all of the varied voices inside of you that express not only achievements, satisfactions, joys and hopes—but also fears, prejudices, jealousies and guilt? 

The hub-bub and helter-skelter of voices all trying to speak at the same time contracts my span of concentration and I have little time left over to listen to you.

I am unable, in my own strength, to treat people as treasured people.

I often see others through the gunky lens of the latest way they misunderstood and hurt me.

In my mind they have morphed from valuable persons, made in the image of God, into monsters-ugly caricatures where I make their mistakes and misunderstandings large and grotesque.

I guess that’s a self-salvation strategy that reveals my insecurity and feeling of worthlessness.

I stop treating them as people.

Ever done that?

Surprisingly, it is at the intersection of these failures where Jesus and Christmas break in-

As a person with autism, my brother can’t help wearing his brokenness on the outside.

Most of the time I hide my brokenness on the inside, away from the exposing gaze of others.

And this is why Christmas is only for people with autism.

Matthew, an early devotee of Jesus, reveals the reason for the coming of Jesus at Christmas:  Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

Sins are the treasonous, twisted distortions of the heart we all inherited from our ancestor Adam.  Jesus came as the second and final Adam to birth a new humanity by (c.f. Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15) removing the penalty and power of sin.  He did this for his people in the midst of their inability (Romans 5:8).

Jesus came for the least and the lost, not the first and the foremost.

Ever notice that shepherds (considered thieves during the time of Jesus), poor carpenters like Joseph, poor, young, peasant girls like Mary, and barren relatives like Elizabeth have weakness and disability, not strength and power in common?

Our culture prizes power and strength as it marginalizes the weak and seeks to make them invisible.

I think this is why the Scripture story corrects our vision of reality when it describes the seemingly strong and weak members of a community of Christians this way:

“On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”
(1 Corinthians 12:22).

You see, my  “indispensable” brother is and always has been my favorite Christmas gift.  He was born in December and mom and dad named him Matthew, the same name as that early devotee of Jesus.

My broken brother Matthew has been a mirror that I may look into over and over to finally see myself; beautiful while simultaneously broken.

Matthew, the earlier follower of Jesus-- writing that “Jesus saves His people from their sin” has also been a mirror, revealing to me my true condition. My penalty for sin is removed in Jesus along with the power of sin.  But every waking moment I limp as a shattered sinner suffering with spiritual autism.  The presence of sin plagues me and I FEEL SO WEAK.

But Jesus became a weak, helpless baby where the shepherds would have heard his cries bouncing off of the stable walls.

He became a baby to heal my whole heart, even the shameful parts I want to hide because I’m so embarrassed that they need healing.

Jesus took on human flesh so that I could take on His free gift of eternal favor and worthiness forever.

How could Christmas NOT be merry with the gift of my brother Matthew?

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

The Politics of Jesus

Nobody said what Jesus said.

Nobody did what Jesus did.

Nobody.

That’s why four guys ripped the roof off of Jesus’ house one day for their sinful, disabled friend. (See the full account in Mark 2.)

They wanted him to hear and be healed by a new politician who never ran for office named Jesus (meaning “God-Saves”!).

So many people had attended the political rally of Jesus that day, filling the house like commuters on an overcrowded bus, and these friends couldn’t even get through the door.

These friends got down-right political that day.

Politics centers on organized control of a community, by an authority, whereby the decisions apply to all members of the community.

These friends wanted their powerless, paralyzed friend to come under the political power of Jesus.

They worked together like a NASCAR pit crew and came up with a subversive way to get their friend to Jesus.

While Jesus was giving a political speech about his kingdom, the paralyzed man, lying on a bed, descended from an opening in the ceiling and hovered in front of him like a man on a magic carpet.

As Jesus opened his brown eyes wide, to take in this shocking site, I wonder if he had to wipe debris out of them that had fallen from the white, limestone ceiling.

What would this unelected politician say after such an interruption?

FORGIVEN!  “Your sins are forgiven.”

Wait a minute Jesus.

·        A kingdom is all about a political order.

·        A kingdom is all about authority.

·        A kingdom is all about a governing administration that is meant to straighten out a crooked world.

FORGIVEN! This was the stump speech given by the King of Kings?

A few scribes (experts in Jewish law and politics) were presumably sitting in reserved seats for the powerful elite and they began to squirm.

Some of them blurted out “Why does this man speak like that?”

These scribes, the political pundits and pollsters of that day, asked a profound question that relates to the deeper question of authority.

Jesus actually spoke as though he had authority.

Authority.

Now there’s a confusing, political word these days.

Authority is the power to describe reality.

Jesus “told it like it was” to a disordered, disabled man: “Your sins are forgiven.”

A man with an unsettled conscience, born with a sinful nature, who grew up sinning against God, was fully forgiven that day.

Jesus looked at the scribes and said in a matter of words “To prove my political authority, I’ll re-order this man’s reality.  I’ll give him ease instead of dis-ease. This man whom everyone describes as guilty under God and paralyzed, I’ll re-describe as forgiven, fully functional and friend of God.”

But Jesus moved far beyond political rhetoric that day.

He commanded the motionless man, to get up and drag his mattress home since he was forgiven and free.

And the motionless man, animated by the authority of Jesus, got up and walked away.

But wait!  Look a bit deeper into this story of authority.

This sinner never sinned against Jesus. Or did he?

If I sin against you, then only you can forgive me.

Only you can absorb the abuse and hurt that I have hurled at you.

Another person cannot tell me that I am forgiven if I sin against you.

Why would Jesus make the political claim that the man was actually forgiven?

Because this sinful man had sinned against God.

And Jesus was making the powerful political statement that He himself was God in the flesh who had invaded the established order to reverse the Humpty-Dumptying effects of the false political orders.

God had come to reorder, restructure, remodel, and re-administrate reality so that all those crippled and immobilized by guilt under God can be forgiven and free.

Jesus never came to take up political office for a term, instead he lived, died and rose again to TAKE OVER for eternity.

Do you put your trust in lesser political authorities when the greatest political authority rules and reigns over all of reality?

Is Jesus the highest authority in your life and do you submit to the description that he gives to reality as found in the Christian Scriptures?

Do you bow your knees and then rise like a watered plant, swaying in the sunshine when he looks your direction and declares “FORGIVEN and FREE!”?

Howard Cole
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church