A Daily Lent

Embodying Jesus Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – March 4, 2020 Following Jesus does not mean holding the right beliefs or advocating for the proper doctrines. Following Jesus is not a matter of becoming more moral. Following Jesus is not about joining a church or pledging allegiance to a religious institution. To follow Jesus, we go where Jesus goes . . . engage those Jesus engages . . . love as Jesus loves . . . live compassionately as Jesus lived compassionately. In short, following Jesus means that we embody the life and spirit of Jesus in our world. This is no simplistic what-would-Jesus-do, but rather an actual engagement with the world in the spirit of Jesus. With Jesus as our source and center, we allow him to live in and through us. The Apostle Paul called this being “in Christ.” And in Christ, we embody God in the world. In the paragraphs below, Henri Nouwen says we are destined to become like the life of Jesus. We are invited into his life, here and now in ...

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent Daily Reading : John 5:17 – 30 Focus Passage : Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does." (Jn. 5:19 – 20) Perhaps this passage could become an alternative to WWJD (“What Would Jesus Do?”). “What Would Jesus Do?” is a hypothetical guess. There are no firm answers about what Jesus would do in any given contemporary situation, only hints and guesses. Frankly, the phrase can be used to justify any number of responses. Further, WWJD assumes that the person asking the question has taken upon himself or herself the full spirit of Jesus. While I believe we each are connected intimately to the Father, we live mostly unaware of that connection, and thus don’t see life completely as Jesus does. Jesus only did what he saw the Father doin...