If you want to get peoples' attention...
...just make an error in your title line! Last week when I sent out what was supposed to be an "Ash Wednesday Reminder" somehow I screwed up the title. I had been working from an old memo and I was sure I had changed it, sure I had given it a new title, but lo and behold when it came out it still read "Christmas Eve Reminder". Within less than two minutes of sending it I had already received two replies and they just kept coming. Most of them were in good fun, realizing it was the same kind of technological mistake many of us who are technologically challenged could have made and this morning in church a couple folks offered me a delightful "Merry Christmas". Only a few were judgmental or critical. Most folks were more than willing to forgive. You see, I thought I had it right, but I was wrong.
St. Paul says, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 7:15-25). And we all know it's true, not because it's in the Bible--it's in the Bible because it is true. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have made mistakes. All of us stand in the need of grace. All of us have known those times when we thought we had it right, but we got it wrong. Lent is a season which invites us to a time of honesty, a time of taking stock, a time of recognizing those places where we have messed up and turning to God for forgiveness and grace.
Yesterday we began our Lenten journey through the "24 Hours That Changed the World" by going back to the Upper Room, to the table of our Lord. Next Sunday we will go from the table to the garden and meet Jesus and his disciples there. I hope you will join in that journey, reading Adam Hamilton's book and reflecting on the scripture. Along the way we will discover God's amazing grace that meets us at every turn with healing and mercy, even when we mess up, even when we get it wrong.
And Merry Christmas...
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