The daily email devotional for Lent 2009 will consist of the contents of the booklet A New Beginning - Lenten Meditations for 1978 from the congregation of Lakewood Christian Church, compiled by the Devotional Committee (Marjorie Barker, Chair) in 1978, plus any new submissions from current congregants.
Booklet contributors include Rev. Dr. Jim Landes, Associate Jan Mahle, Herb Agnor, Marjorie Barker, Walter Barker, Pete Cascio, Bill Dillon, Gene Ditsler, Cindy Fauser, Don Fauser, Margaret Fauser, Isabel Gerrett, Robert Gerrett, Althea Haag, Bob Henning, Mary Kepperley, Edie Lelko, Miriam Monroe, Diane Morgan, Max Morgan, Muriel Morgan, Martin & Elizabeth Potts, Judy Reeves, Howard Robinson, Dick Savage, Rev. Don Steffy, Kim Wainwright, Carol Walker, and others.
INTRODUCTION
The title of this Lenten Devotional Booklet, "A New Beginning," seems highly appropriate to me in this Centennial Year of Lakewood Christian Church.
We of the Devotional Committee have worked sincerely and willingly to obtain the writings herein. It is our earnest hope and prayer that they will inspire all who read them. Knowing that so many writings were written by relatives and friends should cause them to be more meaningful and help us to know each other even better.
We extend our grateful thanks to all who have helped in any way to make this booklet possible. Special thanks should be given to Mrs. Mary Kepperley and to Mr. Byron Pierce for their fine typing of the writings submitted to us, also to Miss Mary Ellen Kepperley for the cover design.
May our Lenten Devotional Booklet help to cause for all of us a new beginning.
On behalf of the Devotional Committee
Marjorie L. Barker
THE MEANING OF LENT
By the end of the 4th century, the period of prayer and penitence in preparation for the feast of Easter was increased to forty days. This is a mystical number conforming to Christ's fast in the desert.
Faithful members of the Western church were allowed only one meal a day and no meat, fish or eggs. In the 7th century Ash Wednesday became the first day of fasting. Self-denial reached its highest point during the Middle Ages, and it declined thereafter.
Reforms in the Roman Church now limit fasting to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Anglican Church observes a forty day period from Ash Wednesday through Holy Week.
Catholic churches observe Ash Wednesday by having their members receive on their foreheads the sign of the cross marked with blessed ashes remaining from the previous Palm Sunday. This is because the Old Testament describes penitent sinners as wearing garbs of sackcloth and sprinkling themselves with ashes in humility and sorrow for their sins.
Good Friday is observed in commemoration of Christ's forty hours in the tomb.
In Jerusalem, during the 4th century, Christians went to Calvary on Good Friday morning. There the Passion narrative was read aloud. Later, from noon till 3:00 p.m., they gathered there again to hear selected Psalms and passages from the Prophets understood to refer to the crucifixion.
It is from changes made during later centuries that we observe Good Friday as it is now observed.