What Do You Think When Someone Says Mardi Gras?

What Do You Think When Someone Says Mardi Gras?

Good Morning Friends,Top of Form

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Today all over the world people will be celebrating Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is the French phrase for “Fat Tuesday” and also known as Carnival and Shrove Tuesday and it comes the day before Lent begins. I am celebrating because Calvin Murphy, the shortest basketball Hall of Famer ever, gave inspirational pep talks to youth in Naples and Immokalee yesterday. I am celebrating because Argeo Cruz and Elizabeth Martinez shared about their lives at the Tiberon Ritz last night and my son and daughter got to experience it. I am celebrating because I am at peace in my experience of God in all sorts of life’s events even the pending death of my mother who last night, so close to the veil, kept reaching up and out with her right arm as if to loved ones and Jesus. So all this might color what I think about today’s golf tournament and fundraiser celebration. But still I rejoice even as I ask, What Do You Think When Someone Says Mardi Gras?

Scripture:
¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:10 (NRSV)

18This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. ¹⁹Likewise all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God. ²⁰For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts.

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 (NRSV)

²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;

Luke 15:23 (NRSV)

³And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 17:3 (NRSV)

¹The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. ² He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;^*
3he restores my soul.^* He leads me in right paths^* for his name’s sake.⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,^* I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. ⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ⁶Surely^* goodness and mercy^* shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.^*

Psalm 23 (NRSV)

7Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. ⁸So Jesus^* sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.’ ⁹They asked him, ‘Where do you want us to make preparations for it?’ ¹⁰‘Listen,’ he said to them, ‘when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters ¹¹and say to the owner of the house, “The teacher asks you, ‘Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ” ¹²He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.’ ¹³So they went and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.14 When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵He said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;

Luke 22:7-15 (NRSV)

Message: Well you probably think of beads and parties and New Orleans when you hear of Mardi Gras but there is more to its history than that. It is more than Carnival. Today has spiritual significance as our scripture suggests. Friends, today is about Jesus offering us a gift of an abundant life, overflowing, generous, exuberant and extravagant. The Bible tells us we are to enjoy life with a passion. Mardi Gras is about enjoying life and seeing life as a gift of the experience of God. It is about the celebration of the return of the lost son. It is about coming into the Promised Land of milk and honey. It is about Jesus at the Passover table. It is not so much about getting rich, or being healthy, having a great family, or great friends, though that is part of it all. No, it is about Jesus. Friends, living abundantly means living life as God desires us to live it. We are to experience and know God in the love of life eternal. We are to celebrate life. This is what Jesus offers because he is the fatted calf. Jesus represents the good health and the well-being of the fat of the sacrifice. Jesus is our Mardi Gras.

Pray we give our very best to God. Pray our cup overflows. Pray we honor others in the celebration of life. Pray we find time to have fun, to eat, drink, and be merry. Pray we realize that the fatted calf is our inheritance in Christ and the spiritual nourishment that is His Word in us. Pray we experience the sweet savour of life.

Blessings,

John Lawson