A LENTEN ADVENTURE for 2024 - Saturday March 30

 

Good morning to you, dear friends – to all those that are still walking with me in this Lenten adventure.  We made it!  Counting today, we have walked together for 40 days:  yesterday we made it to the hill of Calvary, remembering the death of Jesus on the cross – and tomorrow we will see Christ resurrected and alive forevermore!  

Hopefully these 40 days of reflecting have helped us to prepare our hearts for the most important and meaningful event in the history of humanity.  Hopefully we have been touched, inspired and challenged with the studies about Jesus, about the amazing Father and His two lost and needy sons, about the meaning of Passover both for the Jews of the Old Testament and the Christians of the New Testament, about the gifts that Jesus left us around His Cross …

The road of this Lenten season definitely does not end here.  God’s revelations during this time are not only for the 40 days before Resurrection Sunday – they are so that we can remember them and live by them the rest of our lives. 

How can we not be challenged and overwhelmed with thanks by the parable of two lost sons and their loving, forgiving Father!

How can we not be amazed by everything Passover symbolizes and means for us!

How can we not bow down in gratitude and adoration at the foot of the Cross when we see and understand all the gifts that He left there for us!

Dear friends, hopefully – I pray and trust – that your hearts have been marked, changed and affirmed in these days, just as mine has: 

I will never read the Parable of the Prodigal Son the same way again, because I will always remember an amazing father who had two sons, equally lost and needing His love.  Sometimes I’m one of the sons, sometimes I’m the other, but my Heavenly Father will always be there to receive me with forgiveness and grace.  

I will never see the feast of Passover the same way again:  the lamb, the blood, the meat and the unleavened bread – I will always remember that all these things point to Jesus, the Lamb of God slain to redeem and save us, the Lamb that is sufficient for all the world.

I will never arrive the same way to the hill of Calvary, and I won’t ignore all the gifts Jesus left there for me – from here on out, the crown, the nails, the sign, the tunic, and the linen grave clothes will have an incalculable value for my life.  

Tomorrow, for one more year, we will commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. And what is the extraordinary promise that God has for those of us that believe in Him and love Him?  We will also be resurrected and have eternal life with Him!  

“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)

Tomorrow, on Resurrection Sunday, let us greet each other with the words the traditional church has used for centuries: “CHRIST HAS RESURRECTED!” – and the answer: “HE HAS RESURRECTED INDEED!”

I leave you now: with my love and my gratitude for your valuable company throughout this season of Lent, and hoping you will continue to accompany me in the ENGLISH link of REFEXIONES in www.reflexionesparavivir.com in the coming days.

.

+ REFLECTIONS