Christmas seems but a memory now as we move swiftly towards Spring and new birth! 

Lent is late this year, so we have a little time to adjust to post-Christmas joy before beginning Lent and preparation for Easter.  Lent this year begins on 1st March – also St David’s Day.

The first day of Lent is Ash Wednesday, so called because of the custom of wearing sackcloth and ashes for penance or mourning for personal and national disaster whilst also praying for forgiveness and deliverance.   Sackcloth incidentally is a coarse, black cloth made from goat’s hair that was worn together with burnt wood ash. It was very uncomfortable!!   There are many references to sackcloth and ashes in the Bible, the earliest being in the first book of Genesis (C37:34) when Jacob believes his son Joseph is dead and wears sackcloth and ashes to mourn him.
So, ashes are used to also offer repentance to God for those things done which are not in the will of God and to pray for the next forty days to be a period of change in our lives that brings us closer to God and the people God intends us to be.

I suggest that one of the most common deviations that contributes to our disobedience is the reduction in time we spend with God. There seems to be no time to fit him into the busy daily, weekly, or even yearly schedule for many; and when time is found it passes fleetingly with the eye on the clock to be elsewhere!

It is the nature of the world we find ourselves in – so much competition for our time which often leads to God being pushed into the background. But our time with God is fundamental to our well-being for coping with everything else!

As we approach Lent perhaps you could look at your own lifestyle and ask yourself where God is in it? Is God being treated as a distant friend, maybe not even that, receiving a Christmas message once a year? Incidentally, do you find that a card once per year is enough to continue to know your friend and appreciate who they are?

At Christ Church at 7.30pm in the evening on 1st March we will have a service called the Imposition of Ashes.  At this service each person, who wishes to, receives a cross in ash on their forehead to symbolise their repentance for things done that are not in the will of God and to pray for a closer relationship with God.  The invitation to come to this service is to all.  The 40 days that follow, plus Sundays, are dedicated to knowing God better and discerning his will for our future journeys – just as Jesus did when he went into the Wilderness…. We walk with Him into the desert and beyond.

It is often said by those who take part – a good Lent leads to a good Easter!
With love Ann