It’s again the time of the year that Goshen College offers an online resource to help believers make time and space in their hearts and minds to reflect during the season of Lent.
Beginning Feb. 14 (Ash Wednesday) and culminating on April 1 (Easter), Goshen College students, faculty and staff will provide weekday reflections based on the upcoming Sunday’s lectionary Scripture passages, available online at www.goshen.edu/devotions, or by subscribing to the daily email. Many writers will reflect on the theme: “Between Me & You,” taken from Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada worship resources.
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Throughout the Old and New Testaments, covenants of various kinds are made, broken, narrowed, expanded and reimagined. The covenants that God makes with the people of God provide hints at the nature of the relationship intended between God and creation, as well as guidelines for how we are to relate to God and to one another.
We start the Lenten journey discovering how vastly inclusive God’s covenant is and that it is extended from generation to generation. As humans, though, we struggle with barriers getting in the way and are in need of guidelines and eventually a new covenant. As we approach Holy Week, we are invited to lay down the barrier of our preconceived understandings and expectations, and to realize the good news that in Jesus’ death and resurrection there is no longer anything in between us and God.
The theme “Between Me & You” is multifaceted. It refers to the relationship between us and God; it also refers to the relationship between people, and the relationship between people and the rest of creation. Covenants are made between two parties, and things also come in between those parties. As humans, we may struggle with maintaining our relationships and commitments. We bind and blind ourselves with limitations and barriers. Like Mary standing at the empty tomb on Easter morning, we find ourselves confused and disoriented at the new reality of nothing between us.
The devotions will reflect honestly on the Scriptures and offer words of assurances of faith. The spiritual offerings will include poetry, personal stories, reflections and prayers, all intended to more closely examine the call to change and follow Christ.
Since 2001, Goshen College annually celebrates special seasons of the church calendar, particularly Advent and Lent, with online devotions.