God So
what's so special about Lent, anyway? Lent
begins on 9 February. It begins with Ash Wednesday,
which always falls in the seventh week before Easter.
Lent is widely observed by Christians around the world as
a time of fasting or meditation. Why
'Ash Wednesday'? What do ashes have to do with
anything? This goes right back to the Old Testament
custom of putting ashes on one's face or clothing as a
symbol of repentance or remorse. (e.g. Esther 4.1;
Jeremiah 6.26). When the early Church began to
observe Lent as a period of preparation for Easter,
repentance and remorse played a key part. Therefore
the wearing of ashes was adopted as a proper external
sign of this inward attitude of remorse or repentance. So
the early Christians, especially during the Middle Ages,
used the first day of Lent to impose ashes on the heads
of the clergy and the people. Nowadays, these ashes come
from the burning of the palm crosses that were handed out
on Palm Sunday during the previous year's Lent. Some
churches continue this theme of repentance by the
symbolic use of purple clerical dress during Lent. What
about the custom of giving up things for Lent?
In the past, Lent was a time for fasting, because it is
based on the period of 40 days spent by Jesus in the
wilderness before the beginning of his public ministry in
The
precise nature of this 'fasting' varied. In
general, the western church understood 'fasting' as a
reduced intake of food, and eating fish rather than meat.
It encouraged Christians to spend time in devotional
reading or attendance at church rather than fasting.
But
what about the length of Lent? The numerically able
reader will have worked out by now that the period
between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day is actually 46 days.
So why not the 40 days that Jesus fasted? Again,
we go back to early church tradition. In the early
Church, every Sunday was regarded as a celebration of the
resurrection of Christ. So fasting was forbidden on
a Sunday! So the period of 46 days thus consists of
40 days of fasting, plus the six Sundays which fall
between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day. Finally,
just before Ash Wednesday, we have Shrove Tuesday, or
Pancake Tuesday. This custom comes from the many
thousands of Christian housewives down the centuries who
cleared out their larders immediately before the fast of
Lent. The simplest way of using up all their eggs,
flour and milk was to make pancakes. In some
countries the day is known as Mardi Gras, and is marked
by major carnivals, most famously in Attending
to God What
makes a good disciple? Following Jesus is sometimes
tough, so what will give us the strength we need? Jonathan
Draper, in his book 'To Love and Serve', suggests it is
attention to God. True
disciples of Jesus need solid rock on which to build
their faith and their service to others. And that
requires attitude – an attitude towards God, knowing
when to shut up and really listen to what God is saying. We
disciples walk along our path on life's journey, and we
know that our companion Jesus is with us, ready to show
us the way, if we keep close to him. When we walk
with a friend we normally chat to them, listen to them,
and have periods of comfortable silence together, and so
it should be with Jesus. The
trouble is most of the time we rush forward or even round
in circles, engrossed in our busy-ness, and fail to slow
down or pause. We might take a moment to turn to
our companion but we often use this precious time to talk
about others in need, our own troubles, our feelings and
all our burdens. We neglect to pause and really
listen to the response and what God might want us to
understand. We
cannot effectively serve others without this vital
listening time with God. Jesus served people, went
and prayed alone, then returned refreshed to serve again.
So we also need to adopt this pattern of living as
disciples. We
find God when alone in prayer, through the Scriptures, in
the sacraments, through others in worship and
conversation, through observing creation. God is
always waiting to talk to us, and if we really listen we
will stand on that rock with the spiritual strength to
serve others, as Jesus has taught us to. What
the 23rd Psalm is really all about The
Lord is my Shepherd I
shall not want He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures He
leadeth me beside the still waters He
restoreth my soul He
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness For
His name sake Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I
will fear no evil For
Thou art with me Thy
rod and Thy staff they comfort me Thou
preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies Thou
annointest my head with oil My
cup runneth over Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life And
I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever What
you have in common with a woodcarving Woodcarving
isn't as straightforward as it seems. You don't begin
with a block of wood; you begin with a piece of paper.
The first step is to draw a plan of what you want to
carve, and only when you've got that right do you start
to start to shape your piece of wood. The
carver then works his block with his plan alongside it.
He cuts those bits of wood away that He doesn't want, and
shapes what's left until it ever more closely resembles
that original plan. Only
when the design on the wood and the paper plan are
identical has the carver finished his job. He's then made
exactly what he'd hoped for, while working all along from
that original plan. It's
the same for our lives. God is the master carpenter. He
has a unique plan for each one of us, which is a
blueprint of what he hopes we will become. As
we go through life, God shapes us, cutting away those
bits of us that he doesn't want and which would spoil
what He hopes we'll come to look like. He
then gradually moulds what's left until we look ever more
like that original blueprint. Only when the two are
identical will God's work be over. But
there's one big difference between a human being and a
block of wood. A block of wood has to sit impassively on
the carver's bench while he works at it. The wood cannot
help the process along and has no idea what's happening
to it. God
very much hopes that we'll help him in the process of
being moulded and shaped into his pattern. That's why we
read the Bible and worship and pray: to find out just
what his plan is for each one of us. Only when we have
some idea of what He wants us to be can we help him in
the process. Yet
however often we get it wrong and fail to live up to
God's hopes, there's one promise we have. God
will never give up on us, until He's shaped us into
exactly what He's planned for us to be all along. Praying
With The Prayers Of The Bible: Praying in your
Discouragements Numbers
11:10-15. 'Moses said to the Lord, ..."I am
not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is
too heavy for me..."' Moses
prayed this prayer in a day of dark depression and
discouragement. The opening verses of the chapter
relate how divine punishment fell on the people of For
years they had been sustained by manna from heaven, but
now they longed for the fish, cucumbers and melons they
had eaten in Moses
was beside himself with despair. Would these
ungrateful people never stop complaining? Then the
Lord's anger threatened the people again (v.10). Moses
was caught in the middle. On one side of him the
people complained, and on the other side God's wrath was
about to fall. Moses couldn't go on. His
frustration broke out in petulant questions to the Lord.
'Why are you dealing so severely with me?' 'Why do
you lay this burden on me?' 'Did I conceive these
people?' 'Why am I a nursing mother to them?'
'Am I responsible for getting them to Moses
was depressed, irritable and resentful. He poured
it all out before the Lord. It was a prayer born of
frustration and anger. He was angry with his
ungrateful congregation and he was angry with God. Why
did the Lord leave it all to him? After all, it was
God's plan to bring the Israelites from But
God answered Moses graciously! He understood the
frustration, the petulance, the lack of faith and the
rebellious spirit that blamed God for it all. He
provided Moses with seventy elders who eased the burden
of leadership (vv.16, 17). He sent an east wind that
brought quails into the camp and provided meat for them (vv.31,
32). In grace and mercy God 'overlooked' the faults
of Moses and sent him help and refreshment. In
our deepest disappointments, God understands. In
our frustrations, God is merciful. When we lash out
at circumstances and even at God himself, He does not
answer in kind. In our deepest discouragement, his
love and grace and understanding are with us still. By
the Revd Dr Herbert McGonigle, Senior Lecturer in
Historical Theology & Church History, Nazarene
Theological College, Manchester |