Today marks Ash Wednesday, when the vast majority of Western Christians will celebrate the start of Lent.
Many of us have preconceived notions about Lent. Fasting, suffering, temptation, darkness, gloom, a depressing color scheme…it doesn’t score too high on the fun-o-meter. It may not be fun, but it is an integral way the church has been living into God’s redemption story for over 1700 years. As Elliot Grudem and Bruce Benedict write:
Today, you will find that many churches are beginning to use bits and pieces of this church calendar as a guide to meditating on certain themes through out the year. The church calendar can be helpful in giving us a guide in proclaiming the whole counsel of God. Every Sunday should be a mini-narrative of the whole gospel story. Yet some churches…tend to focus on the cross more than the empty tomb, Jesus and God to the neglect of the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of justification and not sanctification, adoption, or glorification. The church calendar, when used with great wisdom, can be a helpful tool to observe the ancient practice of lectio continua—preaching through both the easy and difficult parts of a book of Scripture.
Much like Lent, the Holy Spirit can be something that is so foreign or difficult to many American Christians that it is neglected. That’s why Hope Hill Church is doing a series on the Holy Spirit during Lent based on Francis Chan’s Forgotten God, because the two themes mesh together so well: the forgotten season and the forgotten God.
This Lent, we will begin to know the Holy Spirit in a deeper way—not as an abstraction, but as an overwhelming presence that drives us to participate in God’s redemption story. As N.T. Wright writes: “the Spirit is the one who first enables us to love Jesus and then, in an extraordinary way, becomes the presence of Jesus in us, enabling us to love one another and shine the light of God’s love into the world.”
As we journey through Lent this year, Hope Hill Church will be publishing daily prayers called Flame, Burn Our Hearts. This collection of Lenten prayers is created for you to meditate on the Holy Spirit during Lent, guiding you into a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit, Christ’s presence in us. Stay tuned every day until Easter for a daily prayer on Hope Hill’s website or on our Facebook page.
Come and join us as we prayerful meditate on the Holy Spirit and journey as a church together toward Christ’s death and resurrection!