 Friends, a great mercy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirit as we begin our Lenten journey, believe. Lent is my favorite season of the Christian year because it invites us to pay attention again to the centrality of the Gospels and our faith, the Lord's passion and resurrection. Lent also invites us to pay attention to all that is happening in us and around us through self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, worship, and meditating on God's Word. Personally speaking, one of the things I most appreciate about the Lenten season as a spiritually formative opportunity is that I'm not distracted by the commercialism and social activities that parallels and at times often overwhelms the advent message of Christ's incarnation. One of my permanent Lenten objectives is to pilgrimage to Lent and come away from it more mature in faith, more committed to Christ, and in my vocation as a Christ follower. This Lent I'm working through what it means to believe, as understood by John the Evangelist. John in his Gospel states in chapter 20 that the purpose for the writing of the Gospel was so that people who read his account of the ministry of Jesus would come to believe that Jesus is a Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing have life in his name. I begin my Lenten Reflections this as Wednesday and offer new video recorded reflection that will post on the mornings of the 6 Sundays in Lent to my bishops and conference Facebook pages. For Holy Week, Dr. Stan Copeland, Senior Pastor of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, invited me to be the guest speaker for the Owen Lenten Lecture Series. The three-part lecture series will be live streamed for viewing in real time or later. I'll post a video recorded reflection on Good Friday and a brief 10-minute video recorded message that will post Easter morning. To be honest with you, I never quite know what I will learn about myself, my faith, and the new ways I will better practice my discipleship both personally and in community because of my yearly Lenten Pilgrimages. But I do know that each Lenten pilgrimage has clarified and strengthened my love for Christ and Christ's reconciling mission and vision for a more loving, just, and peaceable humanity and world. My prayer for you is that your Lenten spiritual pilgrimage does the same for your faith and vocation as a Christ follower. Let us observe a holy Lent as we begin this Ash Wednesday. Listen to the story of Jesus' first disciples as given to us by John 1.35-42 using the message Bible translation. The next day John was back at his post with two disciples who were watching. He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby and said, Here he is, God's Passover Lamb. The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus. Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, What are you after? They said, Rabbi, which means teacher, Where are you staying? He replied, Come along and see for yourself. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of the gospel. Everyone has beliefs of one kind or another. Beliefs about who we are, where we come from, where we're going, what we value, and many other matters. As United Methodists, our beliefs are formed over time by a serious reflection of Scripture, church teachings, reason, and human experience with Scripture as our primary source. Our beliefs serve to help us more fully participate in God's work in the world in a way that is clear, convincing, and effective. John in his gospel claims that belief in Christ begins not by seeing, but by hearing about Jesus. Hearing leads to belief not in Jesus as an objective figure, but believing Jesus, the person, the eternal Word of God, his claims, and his promises. You see for John, it's not necessary that one sees signs or have rational proof to believe Jesus. Jesus' words are enough. Hearing about Jesus initiates a process of belief that opens spiritual insight and readies more and more awareness and receptivity to God's saving work in the world. Believing Jesus engenders, with the help of the Holy Spirit, a compelling desire in each believer and the church to participate in God's saving work that conquers sin, darkness, falsehood, and death in whatever forms they present themselves. In today's scripture, two of John's disciples leave him to follow Jesus after John points his disciples to Jesus and says, here he is, God's Passover lamb. The disciples leave John to follow Jesus because they heard about Jesus from John. The two disciples were set on pilgrimage to believe in Jesus because they acted on what they heard about him, but they needed to hear more from Jesus before they committed themselves to him. The disciples spent a few hours with Jesus at the place where he was staying. We're not told what Jesus spoke with them about, but we do know that it was enough to convince one of the two, Andrew, that Jesus was a Messiah. Andrew leaves a place where Jesus was staying and goes to find his brother, Simon, and says to Simon, we found the Messiah, the Christ, and immediately he leads Simon to Jesus. Simon follows his brother, Andrew, to where Jesus is staying because of what he heard his brother Andrew say about Jesus. Jesus is a Messiah, the Christ. So Jesus receives Simon and changes his name almost immediately to Peter or the rock. With that name changed, Peter was given a new identity. He was born again. He's a new person with a new purpose in life that he will discover as time goes on. You see, the more we hear about Jesus and the more time we spend with him and encounter him in scripture and prayer, the more we come to recognize who he is, understand the life-changing meaning of his message, and engage in the grand scope of his saving mission in and to the world. That is that no one should perish but have abundant and eternal life in his name. This Lent, Jesus asks us, what are you after? May our answer be, I want to hear more about Jesus so I may believe more fully and follow more nearly. Let us pray. Lord, as we enter this Lenten season, be near to us. Help us by your Holy Spirit to believe that you are who you say you are, the one who takes away the sin of the world, the bread of life, the light of the world, the door to God, our good shepherd, the resurrection and the way and the truth and the life and the vine, the source of our spiritual life in God. And help us to be witnesses of your abundant and eternal life everywhere we go. Amen. Let us observe a Holy Lent. See you soon. Peace.