Holy Lent

Easter is  where Lent is headed.   The best Lenten practice will let God draw us into a deeper relationship by Easter.  That involves trusting our own willpower less and surrendering to God's goodness within us.

Be Holy

Jesus keeps insisting that his followers must accept the Law and go deeper than the Law requires.  We must love our enemies and all those who have hurt us because God loves the bad as well as the good.  Jesus concludes "So be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mattthew 5:38-48.)  In the Jewish Scriptures "The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: be holy for I the Lord your God am holy'" (Leviticus 19:1-2.)

Jewish Roots

How indebted we are to the Jewish people for most of our morality, so much so that it is often referred to as Judaeo-Christian morality!  Jesus is drawing on his Jewish roots (Matthew 5:17-37) in the Sermon on the Mount when he tells us to look more deeply at the commandments and avoid the anger that leads to murder and the lust that leads to adultery.  This morality has influenced our present-day profoundly.

The Law and the Prophets

At the time of Jesus the phrase "the Law and the Prophets" referred to their entire Scriptures.  (They had not yet decided which books belonged on the list of "Writings," which we call the Wisdom books.)  So when Jesus says that he has come not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them,(Matthew 5:17) he means that he completes all of the Scriptures.

Good Deeds = Light

Back from the sunny Caribbean.  This is the view from our porch. 
First day on the beach I took a bad fall on some boulders.  A young woman and her boyfriend and brother came to my rescue.  Immediately they made me feel secure and cared for.  They stayed with me until I got home safely.  "Your light must shine before others that they may see your good deeds." (Matthew 5:16)