It seems like just yesterday we were exchanging gifts and celebrating the birth of Christ with special pageants, musical presentations and candlelight Christmas Eve. This year, Easter is on March 27th and Ash Wednesday is February 10th. So while we’re in the recovery following the Christmas frenzy, here comes Lent. In a recent worship team meeting, Dave Wilson said, “We really need to do Christmas with an eye toward the cross, for it is the cross that gives Christmas its meaning.” I wish I would have said that, for he is precisely right. For to have the Christ born or reborn in our hearts at Christmas will lead us to be cross-bearers with Christ, offering ourselves sacrificially for the sake of God’s love. We join Christ in his mission, which was expressed in Luke 4:18-19,
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
As I heard the report of our Nicaragua Mission Team, I rejoiced that we could be following the mission of Jesus – providing microloans for business that would help people break out of their slavery in the coffee fields, and giving new hope through the healing of club feet and tumor blocked ears, and to build relationships with those in poverty so they could be given new hope and sense God’s favor and new beginnings.
The mission Jesus declared was not new, it was a direct quote from the prophecy in Isaiah 61, which tells me this is a mission that has long been in the heart of God and a yearning in the hearts of people. The mission contains the Old Testament concept of the year of Jubilee – the acceptable year of the Lord, a year-long celebration in which slaves and prisoners were freed, when land that had been taken was returned to its owners and where debts were forgiven. The idea has always been controversial. Do we dare let people off the hook for the things they have said, done or the bad decisions they have made? Doesn’t that set us up to be taken advantage of, isn’t it too soft? Yet, isn’t it true that often we yearn for people to forgive us and get a second chance or even a third to make and do things right? What if nations and political parties could declare a year of jubilee?! What if church folks and families did? What if we really heard in our souls good news at the point of our deepest need – materially, physically, spiritually and/or relationally?
So my question for us all this Lent is, “How are we participating in the mission of Jesus, a mission that always surprises the people it blesses and always creates conflict with people it challenges?” Welcome to the way of the cross.
Sincerely in Christ,
Will
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
As I heard the report of our Nicaragua Mission Team, I rejoiced that we could be following the mission of Jesus – providing microloans for business that would help people break out of their slavery in the coffee fields, and giving new hope through the healing of club feet and tumor blocked ears, and to build relationships with those in poverty so they could be given new hope and sense God’s favor and new beginnings.
The mission Jesus declared was not new, it was a direct quote from the prophecy in Isaiah 61, which tells me this is a mission that has long been in the heart of God and a yearning in the hearts of people. The mission contains the Old Testament concept of the year of Jubilee – the acceptable year of the Lord, a year-long celebration in which slaves and prisoners were freed, when land that had been taken was returned to its owners and where debts were forgiven. The idea has always been controversial. Do we dare let people off the hook for the things they have said, done or the bad decisions they have made? Doesn’t that set us up to be taken advantage of, isn’t it too soft? Yet, isn’t it true that often we yearn for people to forgive us and get a second chance or even a third to make and do things right? What if nations and political parties could declare a year of jubilee?! What if church folks and families did? What if we really heard in our souls good news at the point of our deepest need – materially, physically, spiritually and/or relationally?
So my question for us all this Lent is, “How are we participating in the mission of Jesus, a mission that always surprises the people it blesses and always creates conflict with people it challenges?” Welcome to the way of the cross.
Sincerely in Christ,
Will