Lent is a season of preparation. It is a liturgical period of time where we soberly look toward the cross and consider the true cost of discipleship. It is a time during which we remember that we were bought with a price and acknowledge that our lives are not our own.
Within his seminal text The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer prophetically proclaimed, “When Christ calls a man [sic], he bids him come and die.” But, all too often, we try to elude death and live the Christian life as modified versions of our old selves rather than as new creations. To faithfully follow Christ, we must let go of the wheel, surrender control, and fully entrust ourselves to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
So, as we enter into this Lenten season, let us do so acutely aware of what it means to follow our crucified and risen Savior in the midst of worldly empires. To follow our Messiah — who came into the world in human flesh to inaugurate the Kingdom of God amid the most powerful empire the world had ever known up to that point — was and still is not an easy task.
Read the rest at InterVarsity Press’ ‘Behind the Books’ blog.