Tag: Christmas

A Somber Christmas

~ K ~ Leave a comment

It’s Christmas time again, and I managed to get through the season without shedding a single tear for my father. It’s the first time in 11 years since he died that I haven’t cried during the time he passed away. His death always hung like a cloud over the holiday season for me, and for some strange reason, that cloud has finally lifted. But today, I think of the families of Newtown, Connecticut who are missing their little ones whom they used to celebrate with. It’s a somber Christmas for them, filled with tears, sadness, and emptiness for the loved one that has now departed.

John 11:35 applies to this day: “Jesus wept.” It’s probably the shortest sentence in the Bible, but also the most profound. On Christmas, as many Christians think of Jesus being the reason for the season, we are also called to follow the Bible’s teaching to “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). The Bible says in Psalm 34:18 that the “LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” During this difficult, difficult season (and it always will be for these families), as a community mourns, let us lift up Newtown, CT in prayer and remembrance.

 

 

Ash Wednesday and the Beginning of Lent

~ K ~ 6 Comments
Image from goldenspikelutheran.files.wordpress.com

Ash Wednesday, as the venerable Wikipedia describes it, “is a day of repentance and marks the beginning of Lent”:

Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent’s way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults.

I had planned on going to an Ash Wednesday service at a local Roman Catholic Church today but for various reasons, won’t be able to do so.

In 1998 when I became a born-again Christian in an independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) church, the pastor (a former Roman Catholic) bashed Catholicism in nearly every possible way. Even though I finished my schooling in a Roman Catholic school 2 years later, I walked away with a dismal view of Catholicism, its doctrines, and practices.

In 2007, I joined the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). The PCA is a Christian denomination that still holds to Bible-based preaching but offers a liturgical structure similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church. After nearly a decade of being away from a liturgical service, my first experience back was a little jarring. After years of making the Bible as my only authority for Scriptural practices as an IFB, becoming a Presbyterian had me reconsidering church traditions as a supplement (not a replacement) to the Bible for Scriptural practices. (Let me state here that the Bible’s authority takes precedence over church traditions and church traditions clearly in conflict with Scripture should be modified or discarded.)

An acquaintance on a message board who went from born-again Protestant Christianity to Roman Catholicism once suggested that Catholicism may appeal to me again in the future. The likelihood of my becoming a Roman Catholic again is slim, but in a way, he was prophetic: the structure, reverence, and church traditions within Catholicism have reappealed to me and continue to do so the older I get (in age and in faith). Continue reading “Ash Wednesday and the Beginning of Lent” →