For Lent, which begins this year on 18 February, Fliss Barker, Church Related Community Worker for Wooler United Reformed Church (URC) in Northumberland, offers this reflection and prayer:
This year, I’ve set myself a big challenge of actually keeping some of my New Year’s Resolutions. Things like leaving my phone downstairs at bedtime, exercising more, taking up a new hobby and most importantly for me this year, reading the whole of the Bible. A section of the Bible each day for 365 days.
I don’t think I’ve ever done this and I’ve always wanted to, there are passages I know really well and some I don’t think I’ve ever read and I’m really enjoying setting aside a portion of each day to sit and read God’s story.
New Year is often a time for self-improvement. It gives us an opportunity to challenge ourselves to be ‘better’. The resolutions we make often centre around being healthier, happier and wealthier, but mostly don’t last much past February.
When it comes to Lent, we renew this theme of self-improvement and set ourselves the challenge of ‘giving stuff up’ and going without. But at the very heart of Lent, it’s really about remembering the sacrifices of Jesus. It’s a season where we are regularly reminded what Jesus did for us and it’s a time that provides opportunities for us to feel closer to God.
As I read through the Bible each day, I often imagine scenes like movies and visually see the characters in my head. Lent equally evokes the image of the desert, where Jesus spent forty days alone, preparing for his future ministry.
I like the image of the desert, (I LOVE camels) and I see it as a place of mystery, promise, and potential. It gives us endless space and is very simple. In the desert, there is nothing to distract you, no noise, no stuff, just a place where we can come to unclutter our lives and learn to live simply in loving dependence upon God.
After all, man shall not live by bread alone…
Brother Roger from the Taizé Community suggests that Lent is not a time to cultivate guilt but instead could be a season to sing the joy of forgiveness. He saw Lent as forty days to rediscover the little springtime in our lives.
I really like the idea of rediscovery. What Jesus has done for us, the Good News of the Gospel is a wonderful invitation to us to accept His constant forgiveness, it’s an invitation to renew daily our inner lives with God.
Lent isn’t about being better, where we seek individual perfectionism, by giving stuff up or taking things on. It’s an opportunity for this daily renewal and to seek communion with God and communion with others.
I wonder whether in this season of Lent, we can forget so much about the self-improvement and the resolutions and instead spend time in conversation with others reflecting on Jesus and what he has done for us. It could be a really special time where we draw near to God and acknowledge our need for forgiveness.
A time to really make space for prayer and for reading the Word. A time where we lay down things that separate us from God, a time where we forget about feeling ‘guilty’.
Instead, let’s make Lent a time where we are thankful and joyful for God’s endless Grace.
How can we share the Good News and Wonder with others this Lent?
Prayer
Dear God,
As Lent begins, we pray that we will find time to be with you in a special way.
Help us to find time to pray, reflect, read and to follow you where you will go.
Help us not to focus on our desires and wishes, but instead,
help us to focus more on your voice, which calls to us daily.
We know that Lent is hard and that for 40 days, you were in the wilderness preparing for what was to come.
Please God, be with us at every moment and in every place.
Give us the strength and courage to live each day in Lent faithfully so that when Easter comes, we are ready and able to celebrate with joy the new life you have prepared for us.
Amen
As a Church Related Community Worker, Fliss works with Wooler URC’s congregation to help them serve the community. More general details about Church Related Community can be found by clicking here.