The following is Pastor Drew’s article for our March Newsletter. To sign up for our mailing list, click here.
“You, child of God, have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Amen.”
These words from near the end of our baptismal liturgy are a reminder of who and whose we are. They remind us of the seal and mark of God that are placed on us as our identity is mixed up with Christ and they are a reminder of the shape of our life as we live out our call as members of Christ’s body.
As we begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 6th, you will be marked with a cross again. The same cross that has been a mark on your forehead forever. This time a cross of ash, a reminder of our frailty, our dependence on God, our connection to the dust of the earth and to one another, a reminder that God makes beautiful things out of the dust and out of us.
As our council gathered in retreat February 17-18 to discern how God was calling us to join in the work God is already up to in the Spicewood, Bee Cave, and Lakeway communities, we prayed about and set guiding values and goals for the year. When it came around to how we set these goals and how we might measure them, a couple of images came to mind. One is how we often picture what “success” looks like, and that tends to be graphs and charts with lines that go up and to the right. The other is the image of God’s success and victory of death, God’s ultimate sign of forgiveness and love and life unending – the cross.
Jesus calls us to follow him, and that includes taking up the cross. The cross that marks us.
This year, and this Lenten season especially, let us discover and dive deeper into what it means to live in a cruciform shape. To live in a way where people look at our congregation and ourselves and see the height and depth and breadth of God’s love and mercy for them and for the whole world.
On Wednesday evenings in dinner (5:30pm) and worship (6:15pm) we will explore what living our baptismal covenant looks like in daily life. What does it mean to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the Word of God proclaimed and share in the Lord’s Supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people following the example of Jesus, and to strivefor justice and peace in all the earth?
This Lent, we follow in the footsteps of faithful followers of the way of Christ throughout the centuries, picking up our cross, dying to our old self, moving through suffering and death toward resurrection life.
You are a beloved bearer of God’s own image. You are a child of God sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.
Blessings,
Pastor Drew