Crosstalk: 'Our Lenten journey'
The Easter Eggs have been on the shelves for many weeks and I received my first Easter Card on Ash Wednesday - rather premature, don't you think? We were just starting in our Lenten journey and hoping to take it seriously, giving up certain vices, denying ourselves certain pleasures, making bold resolutions which we find difficult to keep even for the forty days of Lent, writes Dilys Jones, from Bayston Hill Methodist Church.
Have you been asked what you've given up for Lent? It's so easy to think that this is what Lent is all about. It isn't. Lent is above all a time to pause, a time for self-reflection, for prayer, for renewed commitment. It's also a time to celebrate the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil before He began His public ministry. It's a time to prepare for Holy Week and Easter. It's a time to take our spiritual state in hand, a time for a spiritual check-up, a time when we should be having a spiritual spring-clean, a time when we need to look afresh at our moral standards, a time when we can get our life back and our priorities into perspective. All these things are far more demanding than denying ourselves a few pieces of chocolate, but far more rewarding too.
Lent is not primarily a time for giving up, but for taking up our cross and following Christ, whose death and resurrection makes the taking up possible.
Let us walk the Lenten road together.
Dilys Jones, Bayston Hill Methodist Church
