Happy Lenten Season

So, it's Lent. Are you giving up anything this year? I'm not. I have in the past, but for some reason, this all sort of crept up on me. (Wasn't it just Christmas like last week?!)

Tuesday night, Catherine and I had a Mardi Gras party at our small group from church. It was a lot of fun and a lot of great food! We had jambalya, gumbo, rice and beans, cornbread, bread pudding...it was a feast!

We're really enjoying our small (community) group. We'd intended to become a part of one for a while, but somehow it never worked out. I always had a night class during the time they were meeting or we were busy planning a wedding...whatever. But this year, we decided to make it a priority. So, I created my class schedule around it, and here we are. We landed on a group in the Logan Square neighborhood because it's very close to us. We meet at Bob's (our pastor) house, and every week, we do a deeper dive into the past Sunday's homily. Bob emails out a homily recap which includes passages and thoughts on those from Sunday's message. I really like taking the time to look at those passages deeper, because honestly, I sometimes miss it on Sunday mornings. Our worship service at Grace is designed in such a way that it all climaxes at communion. Then, the homily follows that, and by that time, it's sort of too late for me to take too much in.

Lately, though, we've been following a theme of union with Christ. Bob began the series by looking at the temptation of Christ. He used the passage in a way I'd never heard it communicated before. Typically, I've heard that passage as a sort of "to-do list" for fighting temptation. You know, when faced with temptation, recall scripture to fight it. Certainly that can be taken from the passage, but is that the real thrust of the story? Maybe the passage represents Christ's love for humankind and saving solidarity with fallen human beings. The 40 days and 40 nights of temptation would have evoked images of Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. During this time, Israel was often unfaithful toward God.

But where Israel was faithless, Jesus was faithful. New Testament theologian (and Chicagoan) Scot McKnight said, "He rolls back history to become what Israel was so he can undo what Israel did." This represents Christ's mission: to live faithfully before God for us so that we might live faithfully before God in and through him.

So, all that's still sinking in with me, but I like that. I like that I'm still recalling things we talked about several weeks ago and that I'm challenged by them. It's been refreshing for me.