Saturday, 10 February 2024

Epiphany 6, Sunday before Lent, 11th February 2024,



We are called to be God people

To reconcile and make new

To live with respect for creation

To love and serve others

To seek justice and resist evil

To proclaim Jesus crucified and risen

 

Song “I the Lord of Sea and Sky”

https://youtu.be/uZTQF_9D3-Y

 

Reading Mark 9v2-9 

 

Reflection-Preparation for Lent

 

This week we begin the period of time known traditionally as Lent. It is named after the Anglo Saxon word, Lenten meaning the lengthening of days. In the first three centuries of the church a few days were set aside for strict fasting. By the 4th century this preparation time had developed to 40 days, like the 40 years of the Exodus that the people of Israel spent lost in the desert, like the 40 days of fasting of Moses, Elijah and Jesus. 40 days is a long time to go without food and drink. It's really the maximum a body could stand. 

 

Lent is about self-discipline preparing ourselves to be closer to God through fasting and reading the scriptures and meeting together to pray. It has traditionally been seen as a time of personal meditation, a cleansing of the soul and also a time of preparation for those receiving baptism on Easter Sunday. It begins with a time of penitence, of saying sorry, on Ash Wednesday when we receive a cross on our forehead in ash and we say the words “from dust you came and to dust you will return”.

 

In the Roman Catholic Church fasting is still practiced on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday. In the Eastern Orthodox Church not eating eggs, meat and fish is still common throughout Lent, which is why painted eggs are given out on Easter Sunday. 

 

There are spiritual disciplines that can help us in our Lenten journey. Silence, prayer, reading the scriptures, fasting. Ignatian prayer.

 

Our Muslim neighbours celebrate Ramadan with a month of disciplined fasting from dawn to dusk. What about us? How are we going to give this Lent to God, to allow the Spirit of Christ to work something new in us, to learn more about our faith, to seek God in prayer about our life together as a church, a community of God's people? The number 40 represents a change. We have 40 days to reflect and to enact change, with God's help.

 

We may choose to go into a desert or we may be driven there like the Israelites and like Jesus. We may already be in a desert, a Covid wilderness, or on the edge of it. 

 

The Israelites in the Exodus moved from a situation of slavery but where they had food and shelter into a situation of great risk, not knowing where they were going, how they were going to be fed, where they were going...into a desert.

 

God is there through the trauma, through the storm, yet how do we access that spiritual resource, especially now? Circumstances can through unemployment, tough times, cause us to sink into despair, to wish we were back in the old normal days. Will they return?

 

The Christian journey requires we take risks otherwise we stop growing as people of faith. We may move away from being respectable and risks are taken with no guarantee of success otherwise they would not require faith, they wouldn’t be risks. It is easy to trust God when things are going well but when the going gets tough then many of us look down and start to sink.

 

Lent is a journey. It's a journey from the wilderness, to encountering 

God, to the question of identity "Who am I? A journey that takes us 

through to the healing of others, the denial of those called friends, 

accusation, trial, torture and death.....and finally resurrection.  

It's a journey we all can identify with, we can all opt in to one or 

other of the experiences of Jesus. 

 

Can you remember a time when you had a transforming experience that really changed you? Can you talk about it?

 

 Light a candle to symbolize that no corner is too dark for God’s love to reach and one for someone you want to pray for.

 

Song  “Beauty for brokenness”

https://youtu.be/OaMPE53uP38

 

The cross we will take it

The love we will give it

The blessing we will share it

 

 

Winter

Winter

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