I Want to Know Christ

Luke 9:18-25 New International Version (NIV)

18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and 
his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who 
do the crowds say I am?”
19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; 
others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the 
prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
20 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do 
you say I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”
21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to 
anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must 
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, 
the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and 
he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be 
my disciple must deny themselves and take up their 
cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to 
save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their 
life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone 
to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

Lent, ultimately is about renewal. It’s a time when we—as a community—claim for ourselves Paul’s words in Philippians chapter 3: “I want to know Christ—to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, even becoming like him in his death.” It’s a time when we set our eyes toward the cross of Christ and allow the Lord to shape us further into His image.
Just as Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, we too practice laying aside those things that distract us from remembering what—or rather who—we truly need.
We fast. We pray. We focus. We remember. We remember what God has done for us in Christ. We remember that when Christ calls us to follow Him, he calls us to die. And we press into the glorious truth of Colossians 3: “you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
It’s for this reason, then, that some have called the season as the “bright sadness.” We descend with Christ in the hope that He will raise us to new life in Him.

Matthew Sigler is the interim campus minister at Southwestern College.