Lent

Lent is a season in the Christian calendar for preparing for Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is 6 weeks long, beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding on Easter Sunday. The forty days of Lent is a time of introspection and intentionality, a time of looking more closely at all the ways habit, convenience, and distraction has crept into our spiritual lives and turned us away from God. Many Christians use the season of Lent to deepen their relationship with God through various spiritual practices. Lenten practices traditionally include fasting, prayer, increased attention to reading scripture, and service to others.

We Are Bent, Not Destroyed

Jesus modeled flexibility: hardship and persecution bent but didn't break him. Change and challenge strengthened his ministry. Impossible situations yielded to healing and release.

How many of us could benefit – not from a hard yank but from a stretchy bend, not from stiffness but from resilience?

Bending can be scary, of course. Responding to pressure with flexibility can be counterintuitive. Who knows what our limits are? Who knows if we might crack and break?

But bending can be a source of strength: Trees bend in the wind. Bows bend in order to release their arrows. The river bends around the mountain.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; we are perplexed, but not despairing; we are bent, but not destroyed.

(2 Corinthians 4: 8-10, adapted)

Take time in the Lent 2024 season to bend low and be renewed. From the Stillspeaking Writers' Group, the devotional Bend provides daily readings, reflections, and prayers for the Lenten season: Ash Wednesday (Feb 14) to Easter Sunday (March 31).

On the third day, he rose again.
In The Third Day: Living the Resurrection, Tom Berlin uses his gifts of storytelling and understanding the Scriptures to connect the reader to the experiences of several individuals around Jesus in his final days, focusing on new life and redemption rather than loss.

Join Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas as they feel the despair of losing Jesus and the surprise and joy that awaits them in the resurrection. This study traces events around these characters, along with Paul and the disciples at Emmaus, and how the resurrection transforms their lives.

Fat Tuesday, also known as Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras, is the day in February or March immediately preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), and in many cultures this is a carnival day, and also the last day of "fat eating" before the fasting period of Lent.

This year, New Church and St. Paul's will share in a “Fat Tuesday” Pancake Breakfast, but instead of gathering on a Tuesday we will gather on a Sunday. Plan to stay after church for pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, sweet potato hash and king cake.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and is perhaps one of the most meaningful worship services of the church year. Christians throughout the world will gather to prepare for the journey of Lent by confessing our sins against God, each other and our own best selves. As part of the worship service we will receive the mark of ashes on our foreheads.

If you want this year to be different, if you want this Easter to have power and meaning for your life, then worship with us on Ash Wednesday and begin once again, your journey to Easter.

This service is among the most beautiful and moving worship services of the church year. It is the worship service where we remember Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, family and followers. In that moment, Jesus offered to them and us, a “new covenant” with his life and love.

In our own remembrance we will share in the Feast of Holy Communion and hope you will gather a bit of bread or cracker, as well as a sip of grape juice or wine. Then, following the service of Holy Communion we will hear the passages that tell us about Jesus’ Passion, his arrest, trial and crucifixion.

As the lights dim in our worship space we will end our service in a symbolic remembrance of Jesus’ death by stripping our altar of all symbols of our faith.