Dying to Live

Lent begins next week with Ash Wednesday. This year I am providing bulletin inserts explaining the meaning of Baptism in our lives. The first of these follows:

For 40 days, from Ash Wednesday to Palm or Passion Sunday and Holy Week, we prepare our hearts to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (Easter). Since we never cease to celebrate His Resurrection on the first day of the week, Sundays are not numbered as part of the 40 days in Lent, this time of lengthening light. During these days we focus upon the daily task of dying with Christ so that we may rise with Him to a new life of faith and obedience.

Why 40 days? St. Matthew writes, “Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting 40 days and 40 nights.” Jesus chose not to eat for 40 days so that He might recall His forefathers’ 40 years of testing in the wild on their journey to Rest (Sabbath). They failed the Test. They never made it to the Promised Land. Jesus passed the Test for us all by humbling Himself and submitting to the will of His Father.

We too are tested—daily—to denounce our faith in our heavenly Father’s goodness, mercy and love. In our Baptism Christ calls us to follow Him by dying to the many ways we are tempted by the Devil, the surrounding world and our own sinful and rebellious nature to disobey God’s commands, to despair of His mercy and to bow before the empty idols of our culture. These 40 days are an opportunity to examine our hearts carefully, accept forgiveness for our sins, and rise with Christ to a new life. Dying and rising again with Christ is the daily life of a baptized believer.