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FEBRUARY & MARCH 2018
Make a Difference for Lent
in their lives and in his. On February 14 we will enter the season of Lent (forty days plus Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter This year I invite you Sunday). to take on making a difThe word “Lent” comes from the old English, “lencten,” ference for Lent. You which means “spring.” In the Christian Church, Lent refers can decide whether or not to give anything up, to a period of fasting prior to Easter (a sign of repentance and self-denial). Since this fast always fell near the end of but I urge you to take winter, people began to confuse it with a simple season of something on – our the year. That’s how “Lent” (which simply meant “spring”) annual Easter Offering. Remember, Jesus didn’t was re-defined to become a liturgical word. merely “give up” His We’ve talked about this together for nine seasons of life on the Cross. In Lent, and as we enter our tenth Dr. Michael Brown Atonement theolLent together, I want to say it “Take on ogy, He “took on” the sins of the world. In other again: The fasting we do during Lent may or may not have anything to do something for words, He did something for us we could not do for ourselves. Follow that example. Take on the with food. Originally it did. It was Lent. And let that hurt and the hopes of people who cannot do for about denying one’s self food (with something be themselves what needs to be done. Our Easter the fast early on being confined to Offering assists over fifty helping agencies that Good Friday and Easter Saturday). Marble’s Easter transform the lives and sometimes, literally, save Later, however, it became a fast that Offering ” the lives of people. Take them on for Lent. Take lasted the whole season. That’s when on the opportunity to help them, to heal them, to people began “giving up something strengthen them, to stand in solidarity with them, for Lent.” Obviously they couldn’t to equip them, and to love them. Take on the opportunity refuse to eat for over a month, but they could choose to do to make the world a better and kinder place than it would without something specific. That something may be a type otherwise be. Take on something for Lent. And let that of food (over the years I’ve given up soft drinks, coffee, something be Marble’s Easter Offering. Let’s make this one carbs, etc.), or it may be something else altogether. I told the biggest and best of my ministry with you. you once of a man I knew who played golf at least once “Lent” is not about spring. It’s not even about denying a week. During Lent he gave up golf and, instead, used one’s self food. It’s not about what we choose not to do. what he would have spent on green fees and golf carts to Lent is about taking something on that will do for others donate to his church and to other agencies that help the what they cannot do for themselves. That means at the poor. end of the day, Lent is about Love. That’s why we call the That brings me to something else we’ve considered biblical Lenten story “the Passion Narrative.” And here is over our years together: That, as Methodist Bishop Charlene Kammerer puts it, “It’s not as important what you what Jesus said about that the night before He went to the Cross: “As I have loved you, so you should love others.” give up for Lent as it is what you take on.” Giving up golf (John 13:34) Let’s take that on for Lent! probably didn’t make a discernible difference in the man’s life. But, donating monies to institutions that helped those who could not help themselves did make a difference …
FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 SUNDAY WORSHIP, 11AM
FEBRUARY 4
FEBRUARY 18
Dr. Michael B. Brown Senior Minister preaching
Mark 1:29-39
Principles
Lenten Series: The Key Words
You Have a Message
1st Sunday in Lent
Dr. Kenneth Ruge
Luke 9:7-9, 21-22, 51-53
FEBRUARY 11
FEBRUARY 25
John 10:7-10
Church
Four Roads to Life
2nd Sunday in Lent
Matthew 21:12-17
WEDNESDAY WORSHIP, 6:15pm Every week
ASH WEDNESDAY WORSHIP February 14 | 1:00 & 6:15pm