Hey, You! Yes, You!

When the daily readings shift to the Old Testament, we are given a wake-up call from the Church to get ready for the spiritual arena of Great Lent!

It set off the alarm, and with that, I about jumped out of my skin!

I accidentally set off the alarm, and the next thing I knew, I heard the sirens of police cars heading my way and the phone ringing from the alarm company asking if I was alright. Man, what a ruckus! I felt stupid, but I was glad to know the system worked!

But that’s what it is designed to do: shake up the pattern and disrupt the routine. It’s an alarm.

Something is wrong. Something NEEDS our attention! The Alarm is going off!

We have to interrupt this programming to bring you a special message. We need to get your attention. If I’m going to change the situation, I must stop the action and change direction.

That’s what you do when you set off the alarm.

The whole purpose of an alarm is to disrupt, interrupt, disjoint, disturb, and focus attention. And The Church Year is about to set off its annual alarm for us Orthodox. We are approaching the disruption of Great Lent, and it is no mistake that this alarm, this disruption starts with Forgiveness.

I don’t know anything that arrests a pattern of behavior faster than forgiveness and humility!

Look at our lesson today in Joel (yep, “Joel.” He’s one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament) 2:12-26:

“Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil. Who knows whether he will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, a cereal offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.

Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare thy people, O Lord, and make not thy heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:12-17, please read the rest. You’ll really love it)

This Sunday is Forgiveness Sunday, and we will step into Great Lent for our annual spiritual labor toward Pascha.

So, how do we do Lent well?

We do Lent well by not trying to do it on our own. We do Lent well by paying attention to the wisdom the Church gives us and all the tools provided to prepare us for this journey.

And one of the main tools is the wake-up call of Fasting!

Fasting is closely related to repentance because the heart of repentance is finally waking up to the wrong way of thinking, which produces wrong actions, choices, and behaviors. What makes them “wrong” isn’t a rule violation but rather a revelation of a lack of love for God and too-focused love for myself.

So, what’s the remedy for unhealthy self-focus? Deprive the stomach of every little thing it wants! Learn to discipline my desires and channel the power of desire towards a healthy spiritual life. The path to doing this is the gift of fasting and a purposeful Lent.

All too often, it’s easy to miss the warnings in my life because my life, my soul, and my mind are flooded with my own “voice.” My selfish pangs of hunger and passion drown out that “still, small voice,” screaming an alarm that I am going down the wrong path. I will only wake up to those loving warnings if I stop the routine of spiritual deafness and listen to the wisdom that calls me to another path.

St. Photini was the woman Christ met at Jacob’s Well in St. John 4:4-26. This encounter resulted in this great hero of the Church being a powerful example of forgiveness and repentance. “Come and see a Man who told me all I ever did” was how she described her meeting with Jesus. The only way anyone would be excited about Someone Who knew everything she had ever done was someone who had encountered God and come to see two powerful truths: God knows me better than I know myself, AND God loves me no matter what my faults and mistakes are. St. Photini learned that the path out of her pattern of destructive living ran through humility and honesty. She discovered the power of forgiveness and facing herself honestly. Emperor Nero commanded this hero be thrown down a well for refusing to renounce Christ. She was martyred in the year 66.

Today, are you planning how you and your family will keep a spiritually profitable Great Lent? Have you gone through the frig and the pantry to make sure “Clean Monday” is really clean? Don’t let this beautiful alarm of Great Lent be ignored because you’ve heard it so often before. Step up to a more purposeful Orthodox life by hearing the call in your soul from your Church to approach the gateway of Great Lent on Forgiveness Sunday with love and confidence!

P.S. Photini the glorious, the crown and glory of the Martyrs, has this day ascended to the shining mansions of Heaven, and she calls all together to sing her praises, that they might be recompensed with her hallowed graces. Let us all with faith and longing extol her gladly in hymns of triumph and joy.

Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV