Lenten Journey

Welcome to Ash Wednesday.  Day One of Lent.  I'm trying something new.  Bear with me as I experiment with posting a devotion every day during Lent in different styles.  Some may work.  Some may not.

I will begin with something I bought from the magazine Presbyterian Outlook.  It's a whole set of 40 devotions.  I might play around with what they have written........which I assume they agree that I can do since it is designed to be edited and since I paid for this I assume I can do this.  I only changed a few things from what they wrote.  

then at the bottom I'm trying my hand at Youtube. scroll down if you get bored. let's see if it worked.

Yes!!  Yes, it did work!  Years ago I had a better upload speed and was making Youtube videos like crazy.  I also found out that I have two Youtube channels and discovered a few music videos I made of my friends singing.  The Angel Band is made of four ladies who make what I call five part harmony because you can hear the Holy Spirit chime in when they sing.  I'm not sure I can promise a lot of these videos but now that I know I can do this using the old videos maybe I can make some new ones.  

Stay tuned.  

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If you or I were writing a bestseller, we wouldn’t open with a long list of names. Matthew clearly didn’t take a literary workshop on “hooking the reader.” In our age of distraction, the average attention span hovers around eight seconds — just enough to read the first two or three names before our eyes glaze over. Yet Matthew begins his Gospel with a lengthy genealogy. Why?

 

 

Matthew’s original audience needed roots. In a fragile new church, the Jewish Christians, recently separated from their synagogues, felt lost and vulnerable as they ventured into unfamiliar territory. This genealogy tethered them to a lineage – their larger story – stretching back to Abraham, through Ruth and Jesse, David and the prophets, to Jesus, the Son of David. These names weren’t filler. They were family. And it is always a reassuring feeling to remember that you are connected to family.

But tucked inside this family tree is an attention-grabbing surprise. Matthew includes five women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “the wife of Uriah” (Bathsheba), and Mary.  Remember that this was a patriarchal culture and genealogies normally listed only fathers and sons. Another remarkable thing about these women is that they didn’t all come with the best reputations.  Rehab was known as a prostitute and Tamar was a trickster who had posed as a prostitute.  Bathsheba brought down King David through adultery.    So the inclusion of these five women would have shocked Matthew’s readers.  But it was Jesus’ family.

 

We may never know precisely why Matthew included these women, but his opening chapter signals that with Jesus, we should expect the unexpected. God’s story keeps breaking barriers and including those the world overlooks.

And maybe, at the start of Lent here in 2026, we need the same. The world feels like a hot mess. Churches are shrinking, faith feels like wishful thinking, and the needs of the world scream for a Savior. Lent invites us into the wilderness, but we don’t go alone. Like Matthew’s community, we belong to a lineage of faith that stretches far beyond our individual lives. Lent grounds us, roots us, and calls us back into God’s story of redemption.

Where do you feel “rootless” right now — in your faith, your work, your church, or your life? How does remembering the great cloud of witnesses (ancestors, mentors, saints — including surprising ones) steady you as you begin Lent?

Holy God, at the start of this Lenten journey, steady our wandering hearts. Remind us that we belong to your story, woven across generations. As we step into this season, ground us in your grace, and let your love take root in us as we follow Jesus. Amen.

  

The Angel Band is made of Shirley Rogers, Kat Hutchings, Nancy Gray and Debbie Fowler..  All went to church together at the First Presbyterian Church in Garland, Texas at one time but now live in different places.  Video was taken at Linda Terpstra's cabin in Oklahoma.