Who Believes This?

A Southern Baptist Observes Lent - Day 2

I'd like to begin today with a quick clarification. I did not mean to imply yesterday that everyone who gives up something or practices the discipline of abstinence (that is not meant in the merely sexual sense of the word but in the technical sense of abstaining from any thing or activity) are only doing so for some other motive than to grow closer to God. Many honestly practice this discipline throughout Lent with the desire to know God and His grace and to use this time and this discipline to reflect on the suffering of Christ and rejoice in His resurrection and glory. My blog yesterday was more of a reflection of my personal experience (or lack of experience) with the observance of this season.

Now as for today, one of the reasons I choose to read a book of the Bible for each day of Lent was that I wanted to get away from picking apart a verse or two to find every detail in preparation for a sermon. Mind you this is something important that every Christian should do. However, it can also lead to a missing the forest due to the trees kind of effect if we (most specifically preachers) aren't careful. I wanted to take some time to read a book and really get a feel for the book as a whole. For instance today I read the book of Ecclesiastes. Typically, this book brings to mind "all is vanity" and a poem on there being a time for everything. Well, today when I read it I was constantly confronted with a desire to stop and just focus on one or two verses. Instead, I might have re-read those verses a few times but then continue on. In reading the whole book in a concentrated amount of time, I got a whole new feel for the book that I never had before. Ecclesiastes has this message of everything being a vain endeavor of life. To be perfectly honest, I've always felt that Ecclesiastes was a bit of a negative book. Today, I realized that the tone of the book is actually one of great freedom for the person who lives to fear God and keep His commandments. There is freedom when your life is lived for God and not for yourself (this is the vanity that the Teacher speaks of). It is exactly for this type of revelation that I choose to read a complete book of the Bible each day.

One final note as to why I am reading a book a day. By doing this I am obligating myself to stop, slow down, and to simply devote myself to hearing His Word. This isn't simply about completing reading assignments but about abiding in Him.

A Southern Baptist observes Lent

I have been a Southern Baptist most all my life and Southern Baptist traditionally do not observe Lent. So, I have never observed Lent. I've never been part of an Ash Wednesday service and I have never given up anything for these 40 days prior to Resurrection Sunday (that's Easter to all you laymen). I remember the first time I saw a man with ash on his forehead in college. Nearly made a fool of myself until one of my professors bailed me out (thank you Dr. Sansom, that's one more thing I'm indebted to you for). My point is that Lent has never meant anything to me other than it being the time that Catholics don't eat something and, well, I happen to like eating what they give up. Just another point in the protestant column as far as I was concerned.

Over the past several years I've begun to realize that there just might be some merit in various religious traditions. Often, if observed correctly, they can have much spiritual value to them. For example, I'm not a Jew, but I love celebrating Passover. There is so much to learn from this tradition. So much that speaks to us about God being the Deliverer. I've been known to add the observance of Advent into our Christmas traditions. Again, a tradition that isn't emphasized in Southern Baptist circles but never the less is one that can be very helpful in focusing on the true meaning of the Christmas season.

So, here we are at Lent. Over the past several years I have considered observing Lent in one way or another. To be honest, about the only thing I really knew about Lent was the act of giving something up. For some reason, I hear a lot of people giving up chocolate. I didn't realize that chocolate was such a vital part of life. Of course, you have people giving up meat, or caffeine, or something that they spend their money on regularly that they will then give the money they save to a charity. All of this is fine and well and I understand it all to a degree. For me though, it all seemed to be missing something. In many ways, it seemed that people were giving up things that, in all honesty, they needed to be giving up anyway. They were just using the motivation of Lent to help them do it. It's as if one was saying, "I need to lose weight and so I'll give up sweets for Lent. I'll kill 2 birds with one stone." Somehow connecting your weight loss with a religious motive is suppose to help.

For me though, I just wasn't getting it. I thought the idea was not so much to give something up but to get closer to God? To use the time and the circumstance you find yourself in by giving something up to become more aware of Christ? To prepare our hearts and minds to grieve at His suffering and to rejoice at His glory in the resurrection? I didn't think that this was simply a time to try to relieve ourselves of a bad habit that I wasn't able to get rid of a month and a half earlier when I made a New Year's resolution.

So this is my plan, and I intend to write about, so that people following along can help me be accountable just as they were in my adoption blog (www.raymersadoption.blogspot.com) when I was going through my "Great Coffee Experiment." I have put a great deal of thought into what would perhaps benefit me in growing closer to God at this stage in my life. I came to the conclusion that I need to read Scripture. Now, this may sound funny coming from a preacher but many preachers will understand. It is a danger in a preacher's line of work that because we spend so much time studying for the next sermon or the next lesson that we will be teaching that we often neglect our own time in simply reading God's Word for the sake of growing closer to Him and hearing from Him. I've been far too guilty of this lately. So, for the next 40 days of Lent I am going to read a different book of the Bible each day. Obviously, I will have some days where I may read a book like Philemon. Then there will be days where I'll read Jeremiah. I haven't decided what exactly I'll read other than I do plan to read all 4 Gospels. Today I am reading Mark. Throughout this time I plan to blog about my journey and whatever experiences that may come. I hope you will join me.

In Second

The other day, my 9 year old son had this revelation: "You know how the Bible says that 'the first will be last and the last will be first', well, technically if you are in second you just stay there."