Lent - the importance of Easter in the Christian faith

As I'm going through Lent, and preparing for Easter, I have been reflecting on the importance of this feast in the Christian tradition. Somehow in the West we place more emphasis on Christmas - perhaps it is because we're so self centered and are caught up in the reward and response of giving and receiving gifts!

This quote reminded me how important Easter has been for all of Christian history:

Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn’t allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies, to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.

- N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope (via @invisibleforeigner's tumblr blog)

May the Lord richly bless us as we prepare to celebrate the significance of God's generous gift in Christ.

Becoming the best that you can be (and other myths)

The lenten journey is about becoming the kind of persons that God has designed us to be.  Lent is not about giving up chocolate or meat...  It is far more profoundly about 'becoming' a true person through the discovery of our need for Christ and others.

There must be more to being a Christ follower than giving up chocolate as the following tweet illustrates so aptly!

UthGuyChaz What if, for Lent, we gave up thinking that Jesus died so that we could go to church, hear a good sermon, and give up chocolate?

The wonderful quote below comes from Stanley Hauerwas.  It reminded me that my purpose in life is not become 'the best me'.  Rather, I am created to become the beloved of Christ, fully human because of His grace, love and power.

Without Jesus, Peter might have been a good fisherman, perhaps even a very good one. But he would never have gotten anywhere, would never have learned what a coward he really was, what a confused, then confessing, courageous person he was, even a good preacher (Acts 2) when he needed to be. Peter stands out as a true individual, or better, a true character, not because he had become “free” or “his own person,” but because he had become attached to the Messiah and messianic community, which enabled him to lay hold of his life, to make so much more of his life than if he had been left to…

—	Stanley Hauerwas (via @invisibleforeigner's tumblr blog)

And so my lenten journey begins.