Message From the Pulpit
March 2003
In the Christian
view of the nature of man, we have been created for the high purpose of
fellowship with God. For this purpose we
have been created-male and female-in the image of God. And the highest expression of this fellowship
is the worship of God, both our private devotions and our public worship of God
in His Church. As
Lent comes to
remind us how far some of us have strayed from this purpose of fellowship with
God, for which we were created. As we
say in the Morning Prayer Service, “We have erred and strayed from thy ways
like lost sheep. We have followed too
much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” Lent comes to remind us of our tendency to
put ourselves in God’s place at the center of the universe. And given all the prosperity, all the
scientific advances, and all the mechanical developments of out time, it is not
all that surprising that some seem to conclude that we do not need God and that
we can shut Him out of our national life.
Lent comes to remind us of the peril of our pride.
Lent also comes
to show us a way out of our dead-end street. Starting on Ash Wednesday and continuing every
day until Palm Sunday, the Collect for Lent begins like this: “Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou has made, and dost forgive the
sins of all those who are penitent;
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts…” Lent prepares us for Holy Week, for Palm
Sunday and then Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. As the Rev John Stott has remarked, many of
us have it wrong about Good Friday. Many
of us see the Crucifixion as the defeat of Christ and Easter as the
Victory. Actually, as John Stott says,
the New Testament sees the Crucifixion as the Victory and Easter as the
Proclamation of the Victory to all the world! And in the Lord’s Supper, I believe, we share
in the Victory and in the Proclamation:
“..having in remembrance his blessed passion
and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension…” Lent prepares us for the Victory of Good
Friday, the Victory that reestablishes our fellowship with God. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own
body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should
live unto righteousness: by whose
stripes ye were healed.”
Those who have
not received a copy of “Daily Lenten Reflections from C.S. Lewis” may get a
copy of the reflections at any Sunday service.
“Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the
Lord Jesus Christ.”
Yours in our Lord,
Hugh Hall