Lenten Journey According to Mark
We will begin our Lenten journey of 2022 this week. I suggest for you to walk with Jesus, from Galilee to Jerusalem, through reading Mark’s book of the Gospel and meditating on it. This is not only reading a book but walking with Jesus. So, I would like to give you some tips.
How is it possible to walk with Jesus by reading? We have innate abilities of imagination, empathy, aesthetic feeling, and spiritual (or transcendental) sense. I suggest for you to activate and use these senses of yours in this Lenten season. The book of Mark and the Spirit of God will help so that you can do so.
The purpose of your reading is to see, meet and understand Jesus, a young man who is spiritually sensitive, passionate, and full of spiritual energy. See him and listen to his voice in the same way that you watch dramatic movies or listen to music. In this journey, do not study, analyze, or use any commentaries. You need only a simple Bible, a New Testament, that is without explanations or applications. Jesus wants to see your true self. You need to feel your true self, your empathetic heart-mind when you walk with Jesus.
While you are walking with Jesus, you will occasionally be impacted or grasped by Jesus’s voice, feelings, teaching or actions. At that moment, you can underline the text and write a memo of the meaning behind your feelings. After your daily walking, you can remember and meditate on these texts, develop your ideas and extend your meanings deeply or widely.
Each day, before starting to walk with Jesus, you need to pray for your journey. For example, “Lord, the Holy Spirit, I want to hear the voice of Jesus in my deep heart-mind in this silent time.” I also pray that you experience spiritual, vocational or mysterious moments in this Lenten journey of walking with Jesus. May the Holy Spirit help your journey.
– Rev. Yong Sub Sim
Photo by Ben White from unspash.com.
