Thinking of Lent Out of Season

Today – sunshine and 70 degrees – my wife and I ate lunch overlooking the waters of that great river, the Mississippi. Sometimes hard to believe we live so close to one of the great playgrounds and workhorses of the world. Today we simply enjoyed its beauty. Its waters inspired me to add this post.

I’ve been thinking of Lent out of season. In fact, I just posted on my book’s website, www.waterforyoursoul.com, information on a Lenten preaching series for pastors to use in 2010. If you’re a pastor, I invite you to give this a look. At the site, just click on “For pastor especially” for the PDF on “The Baptismal Plunge with Christ.” I encourage you to print it out and consider using it for midweek services (or Sundays).

 Lent is the time when, with Christ, the church moves from death to life, from ashes to resurrection. Lent is a powerful time of baptismal spirituality, a time of dying to sin and rising to new life. My book on baptismal spirituality, Water for Your Soul: Living in Baptism Every Day, lends itself to a preaching series to take people deeper into the waters of grace and discipleship.

The PDF (above) and one copy of my book are the basics for the series, but there’s flexibility to go different ways with the materials. In any case, Lent is a great time to learn and experience that baptism’s benefits for our spiritual journey keep going and going. I hope you try the series and are blessed.

I Am Second – and That Can Be Very Good

This business of dying to sin to which baptism calls us again and again can be pretty heavy duty. But often the spirituality of it all is woven into the everyday fabric of our lives.

Like the article I just read in USA Today: “Uplift in good times shows happy couples….”

Here’s what it tells: when a marriage partner responds with enthusiasm and pride to their mate’s good news – let’s say, for a promotion – the result is more satisfaction and closeness in their relationship. In other words, if the partner can set aside their own needs and just be happy for their mate, their marriage is going to be better than it was before.

The article indicates that a negative or even passive response is destructive to the relationship. In fact, the study apparently indicates that reactions to good news are more indicative of couple break-ups than reactions to bad news. We need to read that again.

The study makes me think of the Bible verse, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep… (Romans 12:10). I think we’ve emphasized the latter but not the former. This study should help us see the benefits of both.

Doesn’t it really require setting ourselves and our needs aside to rejoice with someone? For example, our spouse tells us of the raise received – the second one in a short time – while our own boss may give no hint that we’re even appreciated. Be happy for your spouse! That can be tough. But if in that moment we can be second, putting our own needs and feelings aside, we can improve the depth and the intimacy of our marriage. A blessing! Even more than we might by empathizing with our partner on a bad day.

For the Christian, this can be doing simply what Christ calls us to – loving one another. In another sense it’s also baptismal spirituality – dying to ourselves and rising to new life. That is, saying “no” to our own needs in that moment, and receiving the “yes” of blessing in our marriage.

This is not to say that our own needs aren’t important; but they may not be the most important at that time. It may be more important to live in trust that God is at work even we aren’t the focus. In other words, it’s all right I am second – and that bit of daily dying can bring blessing.

This time a secular study makes the point.