Vicars Blog - March
Happy Lent everyone! (I’m not sure what the acceptable greeting is?). I never grew up with Lent featuring heavily on my annual calendar. As for Ash Wednesday – that was a new experience when I first moved to this country 22 years ago and got temporarily tattooed with an oily, sooty cross on my forehead! However, the liturgical calendar has grown on me in ways that I never expected. Having a ‘shape of the year’ - Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost has been helpful in my walk with Jesus. For me, the liturgical year helps marks out different seasons and forces me to take time to prepare to think afresh about the central tenets of our Christian faith.
I guess Lent, marked by Ash Wednesday has helped me reflect on the reality of our sin, the frailty of the human condition, totally incapable of saving ourselves – and that just makes our great salvation in Jesus all the more wonderful each year! It helps me feel like I’m journeying with Jesus all the way into Holy week, knowing that for me to have any part in Easter Sunday resurrection hope, I need to identify with Good Friday, and acknowledge that it was my sin that put Christ on the cross.
At the Ash Wednesday service on March 5th (7pm), there is a point in the service where we come up to receive a cross-shaped mark on our foreheads using palm ash and olive oil. As the ash is administered, these powerful words are spoken over us: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.”
In the book of Genesis we start to see a pattern of human sin, juxtaposed with the mercy of a loving God. We see Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden, full of shame, and yet God tenderly asking after them, wanting to cover their nakedness with garments. We see the curses that come into the world, and yet the promise that our great enemy Satan would be crushed one day (Gen 3:15). We see Cain, who murders his brother Abel, and yet God, in his mercy does not kill Cain, but instead protects him with another mark so that no one who came upon him would kill him. God is full of justice and mercy. In his justice, there must be consequences for sin, but in his mercy – he sends us Jesus so that we could all be marked by a final mark of grace – it’s the name of Jesus written on our foreheads (Rev 14:1), and received by faith alone in Christ alone.
I’m not sure if you’ve got any particular plans for Lent, but can I encourage you to set aside some time to rethink about what spiritual disciplines are sustaining you right now? We need to see these ancient practices like silence, solitude, Scripture, prayer, fasting, simplicity, community and Sabbath not as ‘self-denial’, but an ‘invitation to the feast’ that is ours in Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Maybe you could try something new and ask God to speak to you as you put it into practice? Maybe you can chat to your Connect Group and do something together? God knows our hearts and he just loves it when his children try things out of a heart that longs to be closer to him.
There are many fantastic Lent resources and courses out there, including our very own Dan Button’s lent course at St Andrews on Tuesdays 7-9pm starting March 11th. There’s also John Mark Comer’s excellent Rule of Life workbook and course https://www.practicingtheway.org/ and also resources and ideas from the Church of England https://www.churchofengland.org/faith-life/what-we-believe/lent-holy-week-and-easter/living-hope-resources-lent-2025
Do let me know if you’ve found something helpful for you, and I pray this Lent, that the Lord would continue to grow within us, a passion for pursuing him like Jacob, who wanted to cling onto God so that he would receive his blessing (Gen 32:26).
“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Cor 9:8.