Get Up and Go

“Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. 

Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. 

Wash me clean from my guilt. Purity me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2, NLT)

“Rise Up Oh Men of God” ”, Northern Lights Chorale 

  Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,

Now we are entering into Lent, a season of forty days before we celebrate the Christ’s resurrection from the dead - Christians in America call it Easter while other Christians around the world call it the Day of Resurrection. During those forty days, we participate in Jesus’ suffering through our fasting and penance. We deeply touch the human reality of sin and death. In other words, those days are not going to be light but very heavy. It begins from Ash Wednesday and ends after going through the Holy Week before Easter. 

During this time period, we don’t count Sundays as a part of Lent because we celebrate each Sunday as a little Easter all throughout the year. However, it is interesting to see that we call it ‘Lent’ which means ‘spring’ in old English as the daylight is getting longer. It is true that, in spring, the darkness is retreating; the cold and frozen land is thawing; the inactive life is becoming active. It is like waking up from a long sleep. However, the springtime and those heavy days do not go well together.

We know the spring is a time of preparation for the new year’s crop, including land preparation and seeds planting etc. In other words, it is a very busy and hard working season. Now somewhat it makes sense to us why we are preparing our big celebration through the season of spring called Lent. However, our preparation is spiritual preparation.   

So are we ready for the spring, I mean our preparation through the hard working now in our spiritual soil for next forty days?

Some years ago during the Old Testament time, there was a man named Jonah. He is a son of Amittai and also he was one of the prophets who lived during the reign of Jeroboam, a king of Israel. It was after Israel was destroyed by Assyrian Empire and gave tribute to them to survive. However, it was not too bad time because their king Jeroboam managed their situation well, relating with their surrounding nations, except worshiping idols continually. It looked like a very peaceful time; however, it was full of hatred and they kept lustful idolatrous life style. And later on, Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom of Judah would be totally destroyed by the Babylonians - we know it happened though. Sounds like this nation was falling asleep deeply, I mean spiritually, without knowing what is to come because of their sins. Because things were looking OK, they did not realize that they sinned against God continually.

A prophet Jonah was a part of them. He was in deep sleep spiritually. But one day, God called him.

“Get Up and Go...” (Jonah 1:2a)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, where are we now? Are we in a deep sleep like those people in Israel and the prophet Jonah because things are still looking OK for us? God is waking us up now to give us a special mission as a church together, a new purpose of life as Christians through the story of Jonah. Why don’t you join us on this forty day journey with him as we gather each week and prepare our big celebration? We will truly find Christ there!

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.”  

(Psalm 51:10, NLT)

Join me! 

Pastor Kyochul