Lent |Ash Wednesday

In the liturgy for Ash Wednesday it writes:

Brothers and sisters in Christ, since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord’s passion and resurrection and prepared for this by a season of penitence and fasting.
By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

Lent is a time when Christians are encouraged to go deeper in their faith. There are a number of ways in which St. Hilary’s is doing that this Lent. Firstly we have home groups meeting during the week with discussions based around christian themes within the film ‘The Kings Speech’. If you want to know more – please get in touch.

During our Sunday evening services will are going to be looking at journeys of characters in the bible and then each week will follow those journeys with selected bible readings posted here. Please do you join us in deepening our faith throughout this time of Lent.

For the next week, our posts on the blog will follow the bible readings looking at the callings. As we engage with the callings of people within scripture they can help us to examine our own calling and where God is asking us to serve him.

Today, with it being Ash Wednesday and the start of our journey into Lent it seems appropriate to start with Jesus and his baptism and temptation in the Wilderness.


 

The Baptism of Jesus   the_baptism_of_the_christ_21
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[d] by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The temptercame to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’[e]
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[f]

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[g]
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[h]
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
 (Mark 3:13-4:11)
Posted in Lent and tagged , , , , , , .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *