Prelude to preparation

“The Mind of Christ. This is serious business. It’s not child’s play nor is it comical, but sometimes it takes a child’s vision and imagination to help us “see” it. So we enter in with Jesus prayer, “Blessed are you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to little children…”

In the early centuries of the Christian movement, new Christians waited until Easter Sunday to be baptized. Prior to this they went through lengthy periods, sometimes up to three years, of immersive training in this mysterious way of following Jesus Christ. The training culminated with 40 days of fasting in preparation for baptism and receiving the Lord’s Supper for the first time. Tradition connects the 40 days with Jesus fasting and his temptation in the wilderness. On Easter eve, at a gathering that would come to be known as the Easter Vigil, the new Christians would be baptized in a ceremony of remarkable symbolism. Stories abound of new Christians emerging from the water and being robed in white, served the bread and wine of the Last Supper, anointed with oil and given a taste of milk and honey as a sign of their entry into the land of promise. Following the Edict of Milan (the legalization of Christianity and subsequent rise to the official state religion) Lent became the practice of the wider Church as a means of strengthening and even eliciting the commitment of the masses who often entered the Church with marginal understanding of the Christian Story. 

Lent, as we will soon see, designs to interrupt the comfortable patterns of life that so easily lull us to sleep. One of the great challenges of Lent is its very longevity in the tradition of the Church. In some ways, the tradition designed to interrupt the pattern has become the pattern that needs to be interrupted. Lent is a fire alarm, a wake up call, a closer brush with the death that leads to life. The secret lies in the way we approach the season. Don’t approach it as an interesting tradition, a spiritual exercise or worse contest, a rote giving-up-chocolate thing every year. That’s the pattern.

We are looking for a way of practice that narrates us into the Story of stories. Beyond the notion of “spiritual disciplines,” we are searching for what we like to call “story immersion practices.” Story immersion practices are those curious ways and means that re-orient our own stories inside of the grand story of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

As the days go on watch for helpful instruction and guidance on several Story Immersion Practices ranging from Fasting to the Daily Office to Sabbath Keeping to Lament. Each week expect a challenging exercise or two inviting reflective yet playful participation with the text. And be warned: these are serious texts. Lent beckons the people of God to stumble slowly through chapters and verses they rarely seek out on their own. Along the way watch for prompts to explore the online podcasts, media clips and other Reader enhancements at asburyreader.com. This is our way of providing present-day encouragement and companionship as we journey through these ancient texts together.  

Welcome to this shared journey into the living, breathing Word of God where by grace through faith, the Holy Spirit will plunge us into the living story of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of the Father, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.