lenten disciplines | At Water’s Edge

The Ash Wednesday Storm

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Betsy

In 1962, a stretch of five hundred miles on the East Coast was battered by a horrific Nor’easter that resulted in 40 deaths and over $500 million dollars in damage (in today’s dollars). The storm resulted in the destruction of Atlantic City’s Steel Pier, Ocean City’s famous boardwalk, and thousands of coastal homes, roads, bridges, and businesses. This storm is known to this day as one of the ten worst storms of the 20th Century.

The storm arrived without warning on Ash Wednesday and lingered for three days. Here on the Outer Banks, heroism and sacrifice resulted in no loss of life. Brave men and women worked tirelessly for days rowing small skiffs around their neighborhoods to take people who had been stranded on their rooftops to safety. Over 60 buildings were destroyed and 1,300 structures were heavily damaged. The southern part of Hatteras Island was cut off as the storm created a new water inlet, and food had to be ferried to the residents until the inlet could be filled. Winds of 70 mph battered homes and businesses all along the Banks, and waves up to 30 feet were recorded.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and we recall the devastating effects of the clouds and thick darkness as we read Joel’s warning of a storm of a different type:

Joel 2 (Common English Bible)

Blow the horn in Zion;
    give a shout on my holy mountain!
Let all the people of the land tremble,
    for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is near—
²    a day of darkness and no light,
    a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Joel is one of the twelve minor prophets in the Old Testament. He warned of the devastation that continued apostasy and disobedience to God’s law would bring to the people of Israel. The day of the Lord would be a day of reckoning, bringing a blackness of punishment for the corporate sin of the nation.

Like blackness spread out upon the mountains,
    a great and powerful army comes,
        unlike any that has ever come before them,
        or will come after them in centuries ahead.

But much like the Ash Wednesday Storm, help is on the way. There is a Rescuer who will brave the high seas and strong winds to fetch you off the roof of your home. Will you be wise enough to get into his boat?

Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your hearts,
        with fasting, with weeping, and with sorrow;
¹³tear your hearts
        and not your clothing.
    Return to the Lord your God,
        for he is merciful and compassionate,
        very patient, full of faithful love,
            and ready to forgive.

Lent begins today, and of all the things that Lent is, it is truly a season of rescue from the storm. God invites us into the safe harbor of repentance and forgiveness, where we will find his mercy, compassion, patience, and love.

God invites us to return to him.

¹⁴Who knows whether he will have a change of heart
    and leave a blessing behind him,
    a grain offering and a drink offering
            for the Lord your God?

Ash Wednesday should come in like a storm. It should blow us out of our complacency and flood us with clarity. It should level the idols we have erected on our shores and raze our temples of self-sufficiency and arrogance. It should linger long enough to erode all of our wantonness and allow a righteous wind to take its place. It should create inlets that cut us off from our sin.

A holy Lent involves returning to God with repentant hearts and spending time in prayer, study, fasting, self-denial, worship, and service. God offers us the blessing of renewal in this stormy season. Will you come aboard?

Save yourself!

Darkening Skys by Michelle Robertson

Wilderness Days

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Betsy

We come together this morning on the precipice of yet another Lent. Lent is a forty-day season of preparation for the celebration of Easter. During this time, we are called to reflect, repent, examine our souls, and take God’s call to discipleship very, very seriously.

If I’m honest, there have been seasons in my life where I have been wearied by Lent. The call to fast from things that distract me from God has sometimes felt like a call to abstain from joy. Even the music for Lent is written in a minor key! Of course Lent isn’t a call to abstain from joy, as we all know, but it still has a spirit of solemness and silence which needs to be respected. Lent appeals to the Eeyores among us. I, unfortunately, am a Tigger.

Lent is an invitation to return to the practices of worship, prayer, self-examination, repentance, fasting, Scripture study, and service. Each of these things are designed to draw us closer to Jesus’ heart, where our joy is made complete.

We start this journey on Ash Wednesday, and so today we get ready by remembering a forty-day period where Jesus experienced a wilderness of temptation as he was challenged by Satan:

Luke 4 (The Message)

4 ^1-2Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.

This is the difference between me and Jesus. I can guarantee that after forty days of not eating, I wouldn’t just be hungry … I would be hangry. I love how Peterson calls this time ”forty wilderness days and nights.” Just as Jesus was in a physical wilderness, he was in an emotional-support wilderness as well. There were no friends to listen to him, no disciples to offer comfort, no followers who would come along to mop his brow, and no one to bring him food. Have you ever been there? With no one nearby to console you, talk you through a rough time, hold your hand, or offer a tissue until you felt better? If you have experienced that, you know how Jesus felt. Just think of it: Jesus chose these wilderness days for our sake.

³The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”

⁴Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to really live.”

This is a striking reminder of why we need to be in God’s word every day. Jesus rebuked the Devil with Scripture. You can, too … if you know it.

^5-7For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, “They’re yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”

⁸Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”

If you could distill the purpose of Lent into one sentence, it might just be verse 8. Lent is a time to return to serving God with “absolute single-heartedness.”

^9-11For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that ‘he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone’?”

¹²“Yes,” said Jesus, “and it’s also written, ‘Don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God.’”

¹³That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.

And of course that opportunity came on the night that Jesus gathered his friends in the Upper Room and one of them betrayed him. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. For now, may we commit to making this a holy, transformative, and significant Lent season by giving God our single-hearted attention, obedience, and love.

Sheer Silliness

Posted on March 30, 2021 by Betsy

If you have ever raised a teenager, you may have gone through a period when said teenager decided that you know absolutely nothing. When we parent our toddlers and elementary-age children, we are the authority on everything. Then something strange happens when they enter Middle School…suddenly our parental brains empty of every last bit of knowledge as theirs fill up with all kinds of wisdom. Things we say to them at this point come off as sheer silliness and we are downright stupid in their eyes.

Luckily they grow out of that somewhere around the first year of college, when we miraculously become smart again.

Such is the case today in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. He writes to them about the way the truth of Jesus Christ is perceived by its critics:

1 Corinthians 1 (The Message)

^18-21The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

He was addressing the culture of his time over 2,000 years ago, but the same teaching applies to today. The cross indeed is foolishness to those who have not received it. Knowing Jesus, it turns out, is a spiritual knowledge born of experience rather than a scholarly, intellectual pursuit. You can read all you want to about Christ, but until you accept him as Savior and Lord, you will never really know him.

^22-25While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Is today the day when you will accept Christ as your Lord and Savior? Are you being called to humble yourself in his sight and receive him as your personal redeemer? If you’ve been thinking about this for awhile but haven’t experienced it yet, today is your day. You are one prayer away from salvation.

Each one of us who has already made this commitment is personally called by God himself to tell others about Christ, God’s “ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.” The way to do that is to tell your personal story. How do you know Jesus? Go and tell. You never know what seeds you will sow.

Finish What You Started

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Betsy

Do you ever struggle to finish a task? Now granted, some tasks are unfinishable. Things that can’t be finished are laundry, house cleaning, the value of pi, explaining things to a toddler, and worrying about your children. Try as you might, you will never come to a place with any of those things and say, “Yay! Glad that’s over.”

We have made it to the last week of Lent. Palm Sunday is on the horizon. Next week is Holy Week, when we will take a journey with Jesus to the cross. Everything in his life has led up to this moment and the hour is almost upon him to finish what he started. I often wonder where the world would be if he had given up and walked away at any point in these last days of his life. Even his moment of hesitation in Gethsemane ended with him continuing his work until the end.

In today’s passage, we see the beginning of the end. We join Jesus and the disciples as they make their entrance into Jerusalem.

Mark 11 (Common English Bible)

When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, ²saying to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.’”

The city was crowded with Jews from all over who had come to observe Passover. Mind you, Jesus and his friends had walked all the way there from Galilee, so it is interesting that he chooses to go the last two miles on a donkey. Do you suppose it had anything to do with the optics of that moment?

⁴They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. ⁵Some people standing around said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone. ⁷They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it.

And so our King of Kings, the Lord of Lords chooses to ride in on the colt of a donkey. The visuals of that moment are profound. He probably had to hold his feet off the ground, given the smallness of the animal. And he deliberately chose a lowly beast of burden. Does this scene suggest that within a week’s time, he himself would become a beast of burden as he takes on the weight of the sins of the world?

⁸Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. ⁹Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!”

It is likely that some of the voices who hailed him as king, messiah, son of David, and healer were the same that shouted “CRUCIFY HIM” just a few days later. How fickle humanity is.

¹¹Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.

Today I invite you to contemplate the joy of this moment as the parade through Jerusalem began. This joy would eventually find its way to the empty cross and the empty tomb, praise be to God. But we all have to make our way through Good Friday before we arrive. May God grant us the same commitment that Jesus had on our behalf.

Set Your Face Like Flint

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Betsy

There are times when we find ourselves facing opposition for our beliefs. It happens in the best of families and friendships. Sooner or later you are going to be challenged for something you have said. With the political and religious divisiveness that seems to permeate every other conversation, two people who actually like each other may find they are falling out over ideology, theology, or intolerance.

What can you do when that happens? How can you manage the sting of someone’s rebuke and not retreat into a corner?

In our scripture today, we see what the famed prophet Isaiah wrote when his position was challenged. He took strength from his relationship with God and only focused his attention there. When you speak for God, you will be challenged….but look at how he handled it:

Isaiah 7 (The Message)

The Master, God, has given me
    a well-taught tongue,
So I know how to encourage tired people.
    He wakes me up in the morning,
Wakes me up, opens my ears
    to listen as one ready to take orders.
The Master, God, opened my ears,
    and I didn’t go back to sleep,
    didn’t pull the covers back over my head.
I followed orders,
    stood there and took it while they beat me,
    held steady while they pulled out my beard,
Didn’t dodge their insults,
    faced them as they spit in my face.

In the middle of his battle he stood steady and took a beating. He followed orders. He said what God had told him to say and didn’t waver.

And the Master, God, stays right there and helps me,
    so I’m not disgraced.
Therefore I set my face like flint,
    confident that I’ll never regret this.
My champion is right here.
    Let’s take our stand together!
Who dares bring suit against me?
    Let him try!

I love his resolve to continue to stand there and take it! This resolve came from a keen awareness of God’s presence in his situation. “God stays right there and helps me. I’m not disgraced.”

Can you say this in your situation was well? God has promised never to leave you or forsake you. So when your belief in his kingdom puts you on the outs with someone, cling to that. Your Champion is right by your side, taking your stand with you. Set your face like flint and keep on keeping on.

Anybody want to take on God? Let them try!

Look! the Master, God, is right here.
Who would dare call me guilty?
Look! My accusers are a clothes bin of threadbare
socks and shirts, fodder for moths!

Just remember that you are not alone. Thanks be to God.

Growing Through Opposition by Becca Ziegler

Down But Not Out

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Betsy

Learning American idioms must be incredibly difficult for people who speak other languages. Things that flow naturally from the tongue for English-speakers surely create a lot of confusion for others. Idioms are a piece of cake if you were born here. Otherwise it’s like cutting corners and beating around the bush rather than just coming straight to the point. These obscure phrases are hard to wrap your head around. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. (See what I did there?)

The idiom “down but not out” comes to mind as we read the 31st psalm. This phrase is from the boxing world and refers to when a boxer is knocked down, but not knocked out. A count is started, and if the boxer can stand up before the referee gets to ten, the fight resumes.

Somehow I doubt that David was a boxer, but he was definitely sprawled out on the mat with the count at about seven when he wrote this:

Psalm 31 (New Revised Standard Version)

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eye wastes away from grief,
    my soul and body also.
¹⁰For my life is spent with sorrow,
    and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
    and my bones waste away.

¹¹I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
    a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
¹²I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
¹³For I hear the whispering of many—
    terror all around!—
as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever been knocked down so hard by life and its challenges that you thought you couldn’t even lift your head up? So many things can do that to us. Sickness, job loss, betrayal, infidelity, the death of a loved one, abuse, bankruptcy, sin…there are times when we are overpowered and we go down.

But with God, we’re never out.

¹⁴But I trust in you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵My times are in your hand;
    deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
¹⁶Let your face shine upon your servant;
    save me in your steadfast love.

If you are having an incredibly difficult day/week/year and you feel like you’ve just gone five rounds with Mike Tyson and your ear is bleeding, take heart. God is YOUR God. Your times are in his hands and he will deliver you from your trials. You can always count on his steadfast love.

As they say, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings! Good things come to those who wait.

But I Trust in You by Michelle Robertson

Adopt the Attitude

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Betsy

Some days, attitude is everything.

When you are feeling low, taking on an attitude of hope can help you move forward.

When you’re feeling accomplished, remembering where your blessings come from can shift your attitude from pride to gratitude.

When you’re feeling joy, adopting an attitude of generosity can spread that joy outward.

When you’re feeling despair, remembering that you are NEVER alone can change your attitude toward your situation.

Paul talks a lot about attitude in the book of Philippians. In the fourth chapter, he encourages us to rejoice.

“Rejoice! Again, I say, rejoice!” (Verse 4)

That sounds like a lot of fluff until you remember that he was writing from prison. If his attitude can be one of happiness as he sits behind bars, we can take heart that our attitudes can rise above our circumstances as well.

In today’s passage, Paul lays out a tremendous challenge for us: adopt the attitude of Christ.

Philippians 2 (Common English Bible)

⁵Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

⁶Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
⁷But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
⁸        he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
        even death on a cross.

We have talked a lot about obedience during this Lent season: obedience to the call to pray; obedience to the call to give; obedience to the call to study scripture, meditate, confess our sins, and repent; and obedience to whatever it is God is calling us to do.

Paul’s challenge is simple. If the Son of God can be obedient to the point of emptying himself and taking on the form of a slave, we can change our attitudes. Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Where is God calling you to humble yourself?

⁹Therefore, God highly honored him
        and gave him a name above all names,
¹⁰    so that at the name of Jesus everyone
        in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
¹¹        and every tongue confess
            that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Soon the day will come when we will all be humbled. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Christ as Lord. Until then, adopt the attitude of Christ as you wait. This is the way the kingdom is built.

Do Something Good

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Betsy

Recently the entire East Coast was under a Severe Storm warning. A large system that brought copious amounts of rain, lightning, high winds, and the threat of tornadoes made its way across several states. As it approached North Carolina, all the weather outlets started posting warnings, maps, forecasts, projections, and color-coded resources that gave predictions about the strength of the storm and possible damage to one’s immediate area.

In my immediate area, the storm shifted, wobbled, and weakened to the point that the projections from 24 hours earlier were happily way off the mark. I say happily because that is how we should have received the change of course. But instead, many people took to social media to denounce and decry the efforts of meteorologists who were using their best science to keep people safe. They were complaining that the storm they had prepared for DIDN’T hit them.

Honestly, people will complain about EVERYTHING!

This well-known passage in the book of Mark tells a story of a woman who made a beautiful and fragrant offering to our Lord. It was just before the crucifixion, and Jesus received it as an anointing of his body.

Mark 14 (Common English Bible)

It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him. ²But they agreed that it shouldn’t happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.

³Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease. During dinner, a woman came in with a vase made of alabaster and containing very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke open the vase and poured the perfume on his head. ⁴Some grew angry. They said to each other, “Why waste the perfume? ⁵This perfume could have been sold for almost a year’s pay and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.

The gift was very expensive. Contained in a jar of alabaster, the perfume was so pungent that its aroma filled the entire house. It was pure nard, and it was hers to give.

And of course, someone complained.

⁶Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. ⁷You always have the poor with you; and whenever you want, you can do something good for them. But you won’t always have me. ⁸She has done what she could. She has anointed my body ahead of time for burial. ⁹I tell you the truth that, wherever in the whole world the good news is announced, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her.”

I love Jesus’s response. Leave her alone! SHE has done a good thing.

The take-away here is that if you find yourself complaining, get up and go do a good thing. Complaining doesn’t bring anything but misery to those around you. Going out and doing something in the name of Jesus is the best antidote to your complaints.

Find someone today who needs to breathe in the blessing of your generosity. And when you give as this woman gave, the good news is announced everywhere, leaving behind only its sweet fragrance.

Create in Me

Posted on March 19, 2021 by Betsy

I want to start this devotional with a disclaimer. When it comes to prayer, you can learn different techniques, read lots of books, attend seminars, etc. yet in the end prayer is simply talking to God. You already know how to do that. So as valuable as those teachings are, talking is at the center of what prayer is all about.

But using a disciplined approach to prayer can enhance that conversation, especially during Lent. I recently met with my church’s youth group and suggested that we think of prayer like protective TARPS…so we should include Thanksgiving, Adoration, Repentance (confession), Petition, and Supplication.

Our study of Psalm 51 continues as we move through David’s confession of his sins to the petition part of his prayer. This is a wonderful reminder of the parts of prayer. Today we land in the repentance>petition place of David’s prayer:

Psalm 51 (Common English Bible)

Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean;
    wash me and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸Let me hear joy and celebration again;
    let the bones you crushed rejoice once more.
⁹Hide your face from my sins;
    wipe away all my guilty deeds!
¹⁰Create a clean heart for me, God;
    put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!

David’s pleas reflect how heartbroken he is over his sins. The reality of what he has done before God has resulted in feeling as though his bones are crushed. He begs God to remain in him and not remove the Holy Spirit from him. Can you relate?

¹¹Please don’t throw me out of your presence;
    please don’t take your holy spirit away from me.
¹²Return the joy of your salvation to me
    and sustain me with a willing spirit.
¹³Then I will teach wrongdoers your ways,
    and sinners will come back to you.

Confession and repentance always lead to pardon.

Where is God calling you to plead for a new, clean heart? Is there any hidden or unconfessed sin that you should be dealing with right now?

Don’t carry that burden anymore. God is ready to return the joy of your salvation back to you and will sustain you with a willing spirit.

Create in us clean hearts, oh God.

According to the Order

Posted on March 18, 2021 by Betsy

The book of Hebrews is an exercise in teaching Jewish Christians about the priestly function of Christ. It takes great care to focus on the aspect of Jesus being the greatest of all priests. The writer contends that Jesus is better than any of the rest because of his relationship to the Father.

Jewish Christians understood priestliness. They understood the rarity of the “order of Melchizedek” that combined the office of priest AND king. The writer states that Jesus is the best of all of those orders put together…he is better than Melchizedek and far superior to Aaron.

Interestingly, he then points to Christ’s humanity as a point of superiority:

Hebrews 5 (Common English Bible)

⁵In the same way Christ also didn’t promote himself to become high priest. Instead, it was the one who said to him,

You are my Son.
Today I have become your Father,

⁶as he also says in another place,

You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melchizedek.

⁷During his days on earth, Christ offered prayers and requests with loud cries and tears as his sacrifices to the one who was able to save him from death. He was heard because of his godly devotion.

Imagine being a first-century Jewish convert to the Way and learning that it is through loud cries, tears, and suffering that Jesus takes his throne of honor at the right hand of God.

⁸Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.

Can we take heart in this? Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered and God elevated him to the high priesthood. So too may we become part of a “royal priesthood” through our suffering and obedience. Eternal salvation comes to all who obey the Son.

⁹After he had been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. ¹⁰He was appointed by God to be a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus is indeed better than all the rest. In today’s marketplace of beliefs, Jesus stands alone as the one who can truly deliver you. He is our priest forever. Thanks be to God!