Lent is about both Repentance and Praise.

 

The crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are the heart of the Christian gospel. Accordingly, Good Friday and Easter Sunday are the peak celebrations during the Christian year.

 

Lent is a season of preparation for these great feasts of the universal Christian Church. We ponder our mortality and our sinfulness that leads to heartfelt repentance and thus our need to die and rise with Jesus Christ — not only in baptism - but also in the daily mortification of our old self and the resurrection of our new self, which will result in our own ascension into the presence of God.

We both die and rise during Lent – we repent, praise and celebrate our redemption!

 

Through creating time for self-examination with deliberate forms of self-denial, Christians open their hearts during Lent to the self-giving grace of Jesus Christ and our amazing union with Christ.

 

Reflection on our sins and miseries sharpens our sense of the need and reality for the grace and mercy of our Redeemer and Saviour. Sorrow for sin, honest confession of it, and deliberate amendment of our sinful lives, is the experience of the basic drama of everyday Christian life at the junction of sin and grace. Lent is a time to get very thoughtful at that crossroad, taking to heart our predicament and dire need for God's mercy and forgiveness.

 

Choose to observe Lent by focusing on both repentance and glorious praise for being restored in the household of God.

 

We must emphasize that all Sundays, also during Lent, are "little Easters" and thus we should not only appropriately consider repentance for our brokenness, but more importantly, never seize to praise our Lord for his victories, grace, mercy and forgiveness that rescue us from ourselves.