Episode 172: February 18, 2024 - Stained Glass Christianity

Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Sometimes it helps to start in the middle. You don’t have to be a lasagna-obsessed cat to hate Mondays. Come to think of it, Tuesdays can be pretty rough too. Beginnings can be difficult to get going. It’s like New Years. Future firsts of January sparkle like diamonds against the past year’s midnight, but then the alarm goes off for work on January 2, and that ten pounds isn’t going to lose itself. Perhaps that is one thankful reason Lent doesn’t start with a Sunday mass or an early Monday morning alarm. It starts in the middle of a Wednesday. It seems counter-intuitive in the best possible way. Lent doesn’t begin on the first of the new year, but later, as we trudge slowly and hopefully from the bitter cold of winter toward the refreshing coolness of Spring. The forty days of Lent don’t have to frustrate us like new year’s resolutions or feel like a dour and needless imposition on our time. Each day leading toward the cross can be a single step, a special moment of self-examination that leads us that much closer to God. Ash Wednesday reminds us of our constant need to acknowledge and confess our fallen humanity, to repent of the past and entrust ourselves to God’s loving mercy. And from that beginning, we take our first steps daily toward Jesus and the cross. May this Lenten season be a sincere journey toward the cross, from the ashen form it takes on our foreheads to the redemptive reformation it makes in our hearts. May we see Jesus more clearly as we sing the Servant songs found in Isaiah (starting this Sunday in Isaiah 42.1-4) and draw nearer to His death and resurrection. Friend, Monday is past, and Tuesday went with it. So, embrace the beauty of a new beginning in the middle. Midnight is past, and the dawn went with it. Join us as we gather midweek at noon to receive those anchoring words: You are dust, and to dust you will return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.