The Divinely-inspired psalmist says well, “I lift up my eyes to the hills” (Psalm 121:1 ESV), and this Lent you do well to “Lift up your eyes to the Bible’s mountains”! To be sure, the Bible mentions quite a number of mountains: some unnamed, some named, and some apparently referred to by more than one name. This year Pilgrim’s special midweek Lenten sermon series will consider five of the Bible’s mountains: the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4), Mount Zion (also associated with Moriah [for example, Genesis 22:2] and including Golgotha or Calvary and Jerusalem), Mount Sinai (for example, Exodus 19:11; also called Mount Horeb), Mount Carmel (for example, 1 Kings 18:19), and the Mount of Olives (for example, Zechariah 14:4). Considering each of these mountains of the Bible can help us realize our sinfulness, the forgiveness that God freely gives us for the sake of Jesus’s death on the cross, and how God gives us that forgiveness through His Word in all of its forms, including Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Supper.

The 40-day season of Lent is based in part on special 40-day periods known from the Bible, such as Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness after His baptism resisting the devil’s temptation (for example, Mark 1:12-13, part of the Gospel Reading for The First Sunday in Lent). Lent is often said to be a time to reflect on baptism, a time for rebirth and renewal, for the discipline of learning and growing in faith, and for repentance and prayer. (The purple paraments used during Lent in part symbolize penitence and self-discipline.) More than anything, however, Lent prepares us for the Holy Week and Easter celebrations of the mystery of our redemption by the death and resurrection of the God-man Jesus Christ.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, with its special emphasis on repentance. At Pilgrim, we observe Ash Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. on February 14, 2024, with a special Divine Service including the optional imposition of ashes on all those who wish to receive them. Ashes are a rich Biblical symbol of judgment and condemnation of sin, frailty, our total dependence upon God for life, humiliation, repentance, cleansing, and renewal. We were created from dust and, on account of sin, return to dust, and so we repent in dust and ashes. The ashes also remind us of our need for cleansing, scrubbing, and purifying, and the season of Lent provides such a time for renewal.

The following five weeks after Ash Wednesday, we offer special Midweek Lenten Vespers services at 7:00 p.m., preceded by a Soup/Salad Supper at 6:00 p.m. This year’s special sermon series is titled “Lift up your eyes to the Bible’s mountains”. And, as has become our custom, Pilgrim’s Midweek Lenten Vespers include praying the sung Great Litany, especially suited to Lent, given its penitential character. The following are those dates and corresponding mountains:

  • Midweek I (02/21): Ararat
  • Midweek II (02/28): Zion (including Moriah, Calvary/Golgotha, and Jerusalem)
  • Midweek III (03/06): Sinai (Horeb)
  • Midweek IV (03/13): Carmel
  • Midweek V (03:20): Olives

The last week of Lent is Holy Week, during which we offer a Holy (Maundy) Thursday Divine Service on March 28, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. and a Good Friday Divine Service on March 29, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. The Maundy Thursday Divine Service notably includes a treasured form of confessional examination and ends with the Stripping of the Altar, and the Good Friday Divine Service this year includes traditional elements such as the procession of a rough-hewn cross, the Reproaches, and the Adoration of Christ.

Although not strictly-speaking a part of Lent, the following are the intervening Sundays in Lent 2024 and their Gospel Readings (appointed by Lutheran Service Book’s three-year lectionary series B, which largely uses the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, though less evidently this season).

  • First Sunday (02/18): Jesus is victorious over the devil’s temptation (Mark 1:9-15)
  • Second Sunday (02/25): Jesus is confessed as the Christ (Mark 8:27-38)
  • Third Sunday (03/03): Jesus prophesies of His death and resurrection (John 2:13-25)
  • Fourth Sunday (03/10): Jesus is sent for salvation but also brings judgment (John 3:14-21)
  • Fifth Sunday (03/17): Jesus serves by giving His life as a ransom for all (Mark 10:32-45)
  • Sixth Sunday (03/24): Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem to die (John 12:12-19, 20-43)

You may want to mark the following items on your calendar for March 31, The Resurrection of Our Lord: 8:00 a.m. Easter Breakfast; 9:00 a.m. Egg Hunt; 9:30 a.m. Sunday School and Adult Bible Class; and 10:45 a.m. Divine Service. (Read more about Easter 2024 here.)

All are invited and welcome to any of our activities in person or to read and hear the sermons at Pilgrim from any and every season of the Church Year online.

The banner graphic on the top of this page and the corresponding slider graphic on the front page were composed by Katy Myers, whom we hereby thank, in part using a September 25, 2020, photograph by Kristian Sekulic of sunset over the mountains near Eliat, Israel, found here (we did not receive a reply to our request for permission to use the photo but proceeded in good faith).