It Is Well with My Soul: The Sacred Roots Annual 2022-2023

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T he S eason of L ent

A sh W ednesday February 22, 2023

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The Lenten Season, a forty-day period starting on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday of Holy Week, calls us to reflect on Jesus’s suffering, crucifixion, and death. As disciples of the humble Nazarene, we embrace his lowliness and humility, seeking to share the mind of himwho was obedient to death, even death on a cross.

TODAY’S THEME The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6.1-21

On this Ash Wednesday, we encounter Jesus as he rebuked the Pharisees for their outward-only portrayal of righteousness. They did what they did to be noticed, to be viewed in the synagogues and on the streets, and cared little of their actual heart righteousness, the kind the Father seeks. The Father, however, sees in secret, and he rewards those who perform acts not to be seen by others but rather to please him. The Father sees what we do in secret, and he will reward us openly. In contrast to outward show, the Lord’s prayer provides the way in which we ought to pray: the prayer is neither repetition nor rote words, but reveals relationship and submission to God and his will.