It's Not Too Late! Lent - Part One

By Sibyl Towner with Joan Kelley
Related to the Reviewing My Days Map  from Listen to My Life: Maps for Recognizing and Responding to God in My Story by Sibyl Towner and Sharon Swing.

Maybe you sped right through Advent as you got into the flow of the Christmas rush, but it’s not too late to enter into the experience of Lent.

While Advent reminds us of God’s unimaginable love for us, Lent reminds us of our sin and mortality. It is a time to remember why we are in need of a Savior, and the enormity of the price Jesus paid to rescue us from certain doom.

Dust and ashes symbolize our creaturely mortality and moral culpability. Simply said, we are finite beings who sin. Literally, we need to cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, reminds us we are dust, and to dust we return. It sets the tone of Lent’s simplicity, sobriety and sorrow.

We spiritually get ready for Good Friday and Easter with Lent helping us to recognize both our belovedness and our sin, and realizing that God’s grace covers it all.

So how do we physically get ready for lent? This year, I placed a piece of purple fabric outside my front door where others enter and draped it on a tile I have on my kitchen counter where I write a verse for the day. I began to read the accounts in each Gospel of the journey to Jerusalem: Luke 18, Mark 10:13, Matthew 19:13, John 11.

I made Lenten readings available on the kitchen table:

• Show Me the Way – Daily Lenten Readings by Henri J.M. Nouwen
• Small Surrenders – a Lenten Journey by Emilie Griffin
• Living the Christian Year – Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross

We placed seven candles on the dining room table and each Sunday we light them all and then week by week blow one more out. The candles are a visual connection back to Advent. A crown of thorns and cross are placed on the coffee table. These are a visual reminder of this season of suffering for my sin. I play the Messiah CD and let the words take me through the Easter season.

I look outside and remember that Lent means springtime. The days are lengthening and showing new signs of life. Even the natural world reminds us of the resurrection. These visual reminders on my outside world force me to look inward for the work that needs to be done there. We naturally don’t want to go there but God accepts us “as is.”

Spend some time lingering on the inward journey of Lent as you prepare outwardly. It’s not too late to experience a meaningful Lenten season!

Scripture

“Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.”-- Psalm 51: 1-2

Questions

• How can I enter into Lent this week? 
• How will I begin my outward and inward preparation for this Lenten season?

Prayer

Return to the Father’s House (from the Church of the Resurrection)

“O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy; Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ, your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Sibyl Towner and Sharon Swing are co-authors of Listen to My Life: Maps for Recognizing and Responding to God in My Story, a visual workbook for small groups, mentoring relationships, workshops, retreats, classes, between spiritual friends, or individually to re-discover the storyline of the life they are authoring with God. More information is available at http://www.onelifemaps.com./