When the Novelty Wears Off Part 2

Picking up where I left off last time, w/ a couple of thoughts on what to do if you find that the newness or the novelty of worship is gone...

1. Novelty is NEVER a good reason to do anything in the church. If we do what we do in worship simply because we are seeking some kind of new experience, than it is NOT God we are worshipping.

2. The novelty wears off so quickly w/ the church seasons because they lead you carefully along the road w/ Jesus. And Jesus takes you all kinds of places you would prefer not to go. When you begin the season of Lent w/ a cross of ash on your foreheads that reminds you that the goal of this journey is the CROSS.

When, on Ash Wed., we receive that cross many of us were also told to "repent and believe the Gospel." No one wants the cross, no one wants to "repent" -- admit their faults, sins, fears, selfishness and give those up for new ways of thinking, speaking, and living, no one wants to walk through the wilderness, no one wants the journey of lent!

And yet Jesus' words are pretty plain in this regard, "If anyone would come after me," if you want to be my disciple, if you want to follow me, "you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25)

Jesus' words are far more literal than we typically think. He is literally saying there is no way to follow him and keep your life the way you want it.

We become disciples of Jesus when we open ourselves up to God's transforming work through the practices of self-denial and cross bearing. This is precisely what these 40 days come to remind us.

If we skip over them in order to get to the happy ending of resurrection, than we will never really know what it means to share in Christ's victory over sin and death. The apostle Paul puts it this way, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection form the dead."

There is no resurrection but through the cross. There is no Great 50 days of Easter w/o first walking through the 40 days of wilderness we call Lent.