You may have heard me mention that I participated in a memorable wrestling unit in physical education class during seventh grade. My teacher thought it would be meaningful for everyone if we began the unit with a bang by having me (someone with no wrestling experience) face off against Frank (a starter on the wrestling team). In less time than you could say “body slam,” Frank had picked me up and thrown me across the room where my body hit the mat with a thud, accompanied by a slight pop in my arm.
I immediately felt embarrassed but also a little sick. During my next class, the ache in my arm became more pronounced, so my teacher sent me to the nurse’s office. With a brief call to my Dad, I was excused to go home. After trying unsuccessfully to rest and recover at home, my parents later took me to urgent care where an X-ray revealed my elbow was fractured. With the underlying problem revealed, my pain suddenly made sense.
This year, our journey of Lent traces the fractures sin has caused in human experience from the disobedience of the first man and woman through their descendants to us. We all feel some underlying pain in our lives and unless we recognize its cause, that pain will nag us and pervade our lives. No matter what we turn to assuage the pain, until we address it, the fracturing power of sin will only get worse. We need outside help. That help comes to us in the form of Jesus the Messiah, fully God and fully man. The Apostle Paul describes it this way:
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)
The forty-day journey of Lent offers an opportunity for us to look honestly at the ways in which sin fractures our lives and world, while also exploring the sobering cost and gracious gift of the healing and restoration that can only come through Jesus. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and carrying forward to Easter Sunday, this year we will walk through the story of sin’s fractures found in Genesis 4-11. As we do that, we want to grow in awareness both of our need because of sin and God’s remedy through Jesus Christ. Lent is a focused journey that calls us to turn away from sin—to repent—and to turn toward God—to be transformed like Christ.
The devotional booklet you hold in your hands is a forty-day guide written by people within the Eastbrook Church family to help us draw near to Jesus Christ in Lent. I pray this journey together as a church draws us into a transforming encounter with Jesus—His life, His death, and His resurrection.
+ The peace of the Lord,
Matt Erickson
Senior Pastor, Eastbrook Church
How to Use this Devotional:
Each week of this devotional begins with a page for you to take notes as you hear and process through Sunday’s sermon in church. Each day Monday-Friday has a short devotional thought written by one of our Eastbrookers with questions at the end for deeper reflection.
On Saturdays, we will guide you through a different spiritual practice or discipline for the week. Even as we guide you through these practices, remember that the spiritual disciplines in and of themselves are not the goal. Rather, they are tools we use on our journey of sanctification as we aim to become more like Jesus Christ.
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