Lenten Banners
Lenten Banners
Reflections by the Artist
S. Jewell S. McGhee 2-21-10
God’s description of himself as the Alpha and the Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), the "Beginning and the End," is meant to comfort. In the Lenten season we certainly need to hear this particular assurance.
Lent is the inhalation, the anticipation; waiting, endurance. In the forty days before Christ’s death the disciples felt the darkening as Jesus began to speak of his death. They saw as his ministry became more confrontational. The storm was gathering around them and they had to ask themselves again, "If I can trust that Jesus can calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee, can I trust that he is the Lord of this storm also?"
During Lent we participate in Christ’s suffering about as faithfully as the disciples did in the Garden of Gethsemane. The token pleasures and temptations from which we deprive ourselves become the strangest form of seductive taskmaster.
How can we offer these so tattered rags, as gifts to a Holy, now glorified, God?
We can do this because he has been with us from before our beginning and he will be with us to the end. He has laid his plan in place and has continued to work all things together for His good. We can and we must remember this as we anticipate the crashing waves around us, the biting cold on our skin, and the very real possibility that our small boat may break into splinters under our feet. We know that he is our firm and sure anchor in this boat and we know that this rising storm in our lives is under His authority.
S. Jewell S. McGhee 2-21-10
God’s description of himself as the Alpha and the Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), the "Beginning and the End," is meant to comfort. In the Lenten season we certainly need to hear this particular assurance.
Lent is the inhalation, the anticipation; waiting, endurance. In the forty days before Christ’s death the disciples felt the darkening as Jesus began to speak of his death. They saw as his ministry became more confrontational. The storm was gathering around them and they had to ask themselves again, "If I can trust that Jesus can calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee, can I trust that he is the Lord of this storm also?"
During Lent we participate in Christ’s suffering about as faithfully as the disciples did in the Garden of Gethsemane. The token pleasures and temptations from which we deprive ourselves become the strangest form of seductive taskmaster.
How can we offer these so tattered rags, as gifts to a Holy, now glorified, God?
We can do this because he has been with us from before our beginning and he will be with us to the end. He has laid his plan in place and has continued to work all things together for His good. We can and we must remember this as we anticipate the crashing waves around us, the biting cold on our skin, and the very real possibility that our small boat may break into splinters under our feet. We know that he is our firm and sure anchor in this boat and we know that this rising storm in our lives is under His authority.