Suggested Fast: Food
Note: Week 1 involves a fast from food. You may choose to fast from one meal a day; others will do an entire day; others still might choose a fast of multiple days.
Introduction
O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness,
lust of power and idle talk.
But give me rather the spirit of chastity, humility,
patience and love to my servant.
Yea, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my
brother;
for thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen
A COMMON FOURTH-CENTURY PRAYER OF LENT FROM ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN
Lent is about the gospel. It is a time to narrow the focus of the Church to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to turn from our sin and trust in his atoning work.
The season of Lent lasts approximately 40 days, excluding Sundays, between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The 40 days have obvious biblical parallels in the flood narrative (Gen. 6-8), the giving of the Law to Moses on Sinai (Exod. 24:12-18), Elijah’s journey to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:1-12) and Jesus’
fasting and temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11, Mark 1:9-12, Luke 4:1-13). The last of these accounts is most relevant to the season.
Originally a preparation period for those desiring to be baptized, Lent eventually became embedded into Christian tradition as a season for the Church to symbolically follow Christ into the wilderness. It is a time for fasting and self-denial, though not for denial itself. It is a period to empty ourselves of lesser things so that we might be filled with the greater things of the gospel. Whereas Advent is a season of ever-
increasing light awaiting the incarnation of Christ, Lent is a season of ever-decreasing light approaching the cross.
Selections from the Heidelberg Catechism
Q3. How do you come to know your misery?
A. The law of God tells me.
Q4. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Q5. Can you live up to all this perfectly?
A. No. I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor.
Q6. Did God create people so wicked and perverse?
A. No. God created them good1 and in his own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that they might truly know God their creator, love him with all their heart, and live with God in eternal happiness, to praise and glorify him.
Q7. Then where does this corrupt human nature come from?
A. The fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are all
conceived and born in a sinful condition.
Q8. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil?
A. Yes,unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.
Q9. But doesn’t God do us an injustice by requiring in his law what we are unable to do?
A. No, God created human beings with the ability to keep the law. They, however, provoked by the devil, in willful disobedience, robbed themselves and all their descendants of these gifts.
Q10. Does God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not. God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge, God will punish them both now and in eternity, having declared: “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.”
Q11. But isn’t God also merciful?
A. God is certainly merciful, but also just. God’s justice demands that sin, committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty—eternal punishment of body and soul.
Q88. What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion?
A. Two things: the dying-away of the old self,and the rising-to-life of the new.
Q89. What is the dying-away of the old self?
A. To be genuinely sorry for sin and more and more to hate and run away from it.
Psalm 51 | Reflections and Excerpts
Brothers and sisters in Christ, every year at Easter, during the time of the “Christian Passover,” we celebrate our redemption through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration and to practice
with discipline daily repentance, our daily dying and rising in union with Christ. We begin this season by acknowledging our need for repentance and for the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. (vv 1-4)
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. (vv 7-9)
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (vv 10-12)
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. (vv 16-17)
Songs of Reflection
God, Be Merciful to Me (Psalm 51) (Lyrics)
His Mercy is More (Lyrics)
O Come to the Altar (Lyrics)
For Kids: What is Lent?
We prepare to celebrate Good Friday and Easter Sunday by going on a 40-day journey through Lent. The church developed this tradition called Lent, where we stop, look, and listen to what God is doing. On this 40-day journey, we stop to see what God wants us to leave behind so that we may become closer to him and able to listen to his guidance for our lives.
We read in Ecclesiastes 3:1-4, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance….”
We set this time aside to see what it means to suffer for Jesus’ sake and walk step by painful step with Jesus on the road to the cross. It is a hard road, but we know it shines with Glory.
Draw a scene of different seasons from the verses we read today.