I decided about a year ago that this year I was going to do something out of the ordinary to bring a greater focus to celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection on Easter. As a follower of Christ with the background I have sometimes the passion week and the sufferings of Christ are under-emphasized and I’ve wanted to move towards a more significant experience and practice. I decided I was going to participate in lent and give something up that would cause me to feel daily my dependence upon something other than me.If you know me, there’s not much secret as to what I am most physically dependent with a borderline addiction and that would be soda, diet coke in particular. So a few weeks ago after considering the power diet coke has over me, I felt like this was the thing to die to for the coming season.I’m in day 3 of my particular fast and here’s a couple observations. I miss diet coke badly. I think about it all the time. I have had a couple rounds of caffeine headaches which I’m managing with an occasional coffee (which I don’t really like that much). In fact, if there’s a commercial or tv show and there’s a strategically placed can for advertising purposes – I’m hypersensitive to it. Olympics – I see every sign and every ad for diet coke as if I was a savant. I see nothing but that 12 oz. can right now. As you can see, this is a faith endeavor and you might be thinking I need deliverance from bondage – and that might be true.Anyway, this process came about because I wanted to have a more holistic and broader reflection on Easter and the passion week and the resurrection this year. A lot of that comes from having read a couple books over the last couple years from N.T. Wright.
If you’re wanting to specifically do some reflection and reading, one step would be to read one of his more recent books entitled Surprised By Joy: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. As you get closer to Easter itself a great read to go through during the passion week is Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. You can read a brief chapter each day of passion week leading up to Easter and last year it was very helpful for me in shaping how I experienced that time.
My friend Mike passed on a site that could also be of help if you have a family and are thinking about how to create an environment that is nurturing significant spiritual formation for your children through seasons like this. It’s worth checking out at: http://www.modernsacredfamily.com/Hope this is a meaningful and hopeful season for you.
