April 5thSin and Redemption
To my dear TFMC family,
As we approach Easter, the topic of Sin and Redemption comes into focus. Our exploration of the 7 Deadly Sins has not just been an exercise in talking about these shadows in our lives.
We’ve been exploring these Sins because they are aspects of our lives which we need to have redeemed.
Easter is a pivotal movement in our faith when we declare that Jesus has defeated the power of Sin and Death. Easter is the pivotal moment when Jesus de-fanged the powers that hold say on our lives. Easter is the pivotal moment when grace bursts forth and provides us the avenue to find freedom from the weight these Sins can place in our lives.
For me, this series, like the season of Lent, is about moving us towards the grace of God, as enacted and embodied in Jesus, so we may more fully express and embody God’s love to the world. And so, while each week we spend time focusing on the Sin in our lives, we also spend the same amount of time focusing on ways to find redemption. Because of Jesus' great act of love, we find that grace; that redemption, through our continued connection with God and Jesus in prayer.
It’s in prayer, in the different spiritual disciplines each week, where we invite God to speak and reveal to us the areas of our lives where we have misdirected our love, and prayer re-orients us, and our lives. We’re most accustomed to intercessory prayer; that is prayer where we do the talking. This prayer doesn’t always help reorient us, instead, this prayer is sometimes seen as trying to bend God’s will to our own.
Throughout this series, we are using a variety of prayers which are contemplative in nature; that is making space for God to speak to us. Theologian and author David Fitch, in his most recent books, talks about how we need to create space for God to be at work. One of those ways that we make space for God to be at work, is through contemplative prayer.
In contemplative prayer we open ourselves, our ears, our hearts, our minds, our eyes, to hear, feel, sense, and see God at work. When we pray, we create space in our full lives to let go and let God act; to allow God to move us on the path of redemption. Prayer, as I see it, re-orients us, and the objects of our love. Prayer helps us embody and live out the virtues which we are reflecting on this series.
As we get closer to Easter as we come closer to the end of the season of Lent, and, for some of us, the end of our Lent fast, let’s not forget some of these practices and virtues. Let’s remember the space that these prayer practices have opened up in our lives, and how God has entered in, leading us closer to God and God’s love.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld