FIRST UMC OF SEALY
  • Home
  • Worship
  • Who We Are
    • Church Staff
    • First Board
    • Our History >
      • Sanctuary Remodel
  • Ministries
    • Caring
    • Youth >
      • Confirmation
    • Children >
      • Children's Choir
      • First Kids Mother's Day Out >
        • Registration
        • First Kids Summer Day Camp >
          • First Kids Summer Day Camp Enrollment
      • Safe Sanctuary
      • Vacation Bible School
    • Missions & Outreach >
      • Community Garden
      • Youth Mission Project
    • United Methodist Women
  • Events
    • Ash Wednesday
  • Giving
  • Contact Us

On Ash Wednesday 

2/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Why do we begin Lent with such a stark reminder of death as Ash Wednesday?
 
Precisely because we are, during this season, preparing ourselves, and some among us, to live out the vows of the baptismal covenant more faithfully.
 
And baptism is about death first.
 
As Paul reminds us in Romans 6:4-5: in baptism we are co-buried with Christ into a death like his, that we may be raised with him in a Resurrection like his. We die — to sin, and to the power of death as a power over us. Easter Season is the time for focusing on life in the Risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. During Lent, we learn or learn more deeply what it means to “die to self and chiefly live by [God’s] most holy Word” (Claudia Hernaman, “Lord, Who throughout These Forty Days,” UM Hymnal, 269, verse 3).
 
Death to self is the journey of discipleship. To become a disciple of someone, as Jesus understood it and as rabbis in some branches of Judaism still practice it, is to submit oneself to learning everything about how the teacher lives. It is to put aside one’s own inherited patterns of life to learn those of another. From the earliest days, Lent was the final and most intense leg in a three-year journey of discipling, an opportunity for those who had become hearers of the Word (catechumens) to become doers also.
 
But we do not become doers of the Word, we do not become disciples of Jesus, without first dying to self. Jesus himself said this. Whoever wants to be his disciple must deny themselves, take up the cross, and follow him. To deny ourselves is to die to ourselves.
 
So Lent begins with all of us together, disciples with decades of experience and those just now coming to the way of Jesus, enacting exactly what it takes for us to take this journey of discipleship. We acknowledge how overrun by sin our lives still are. And we take on the ashes as a sign of our mortality and sinfulness. We all begin this journey on that level playing field. We acknowledge we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
 
That is why these two actions—embracing our mortality and acknowledging and turning from our sin—are the heart of this service. They are the most appropriate ritual beginning for our personal and corporate disciplines of discipling and growing in discipleship, in death to self, throughout this season.
 
I look forward to beginning our Lenten journey together on Ash Wednesday at 6:30pm. Hope to see you there.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    In matters of faith, we at First United Methodist Church, Sealy put primary reliance on the Bible. In scripture, we understand that we are all God’s children; therefore, we will be a church that cares for the needs of our church and local community through prayer, deeds, inspiration, and love in the spirit of Christ.

    Archives

    April 2021
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    August 2019
    May 2019
    September 2018
    May 2018
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All
    Bread Of Life
    Giving
    Holy Spirit
    Sermon Series
    Transformation
    Wesley

    RSS Feed

Location

Our Mission

​Caring for the needs of our church and community through prayer, deeds, inspiration and love in the Spirit of Christ.

Sunday Worship: 10 am
Adult & Children & Youth Sunday School 9 am
First Kids Mother's Day Out
​(Tuesday & Thursday; 8am to 2pm; Ages 1-3)
Rev Pat Bell, Pastor
First United Methodist Church Sealy
200 Atchison Street
​Sealy, Texas 77474

979.885.2223  ​

Contact Us

    Connect With us:

    Sign up to receive emails and newsletters from First UMC Sealy.
Submit
  • Home
  • Worship
  • Who We Are
    • Church Staff
    • First Board
    • Our History >
      • Sanctuary Remodel
  • Ministries
    • Caring
    • Youth >
      • Confirmation
    • Children >
      • Children's Choir
      • First Kids Mother's Day Out >
        • Registration
        • First Kids Summer Day Camp >
          • First Kids Summer Day Camp Enrollment
      • Safe Sanctuary
      • Vacation Bible School
    • Missions & Outreach >
      • Community Garden
      • Youth Mission Project
    • United Methodist Women
  • Events
    • Ash Wednesday
  • Giving
  • Contact Us