Saturday’s Thought
Good Morning.
This week has been a very good discipline for me as I looked again at what I thought about Lent and it has added a different dimension to Lent for me.
Jesus’ time in the desert was not a time of preparation for his death but for the beginning of his ministry. We often forget this as Lent for us leads to Good Friday then Easter. I would suggest that it would be useful for us to consider this season of Lent as a beginning of something rather than the end of something.
Some people think of Lent as a time of abstinence, they often say that Lent ought to be a time when we struggle. I would ask those people to rethink what they are saying and why. If, as I believe, Lent is a time when we can reflect on and celebrate God’s love for us then we can’t be all doom and gloom.
When we read the stories in the Bible of Jesus healing people, whether in mind, body or soul, we are never told that the healed person went away crying. Many times we are told that they wanted to tell the world about the joy they felt, or there were orders for meals to be provided and eaten. Everyone was talking about the change in them and their lives would never be the same.
So why can’t we do the same when through our acknowledgement of our sins, the need to seek forgiveness and accepting God’s love we become ‘healed’. Our lives will never be the same again and people will notice the change in us. We may not want to tell the world about our sins but I can’t see why we would want to hide God’s love.
When we meet the love of our lives we may not want to tell everyone everything about that person but we most certainly want to tell people that we are loved. We want them to share our joy and the beginning of a new phase in our lives. If this new love leads to a wedding then people are invited to join in that celebration of our love.
Lent can be the start of a new phase in our relationship with God which can bring us so much joy. If it is so for you why not join me in seeing Lent as a time of celebration that God’s love is bigger than anything we could imagine, that within that love we can be ourselves and now that we are loved.
I hope you have a joyful Lent.
