Lessons of Lent and Easter…

I’m conscious that I started Lent by saying that the word “Lent” is in origin another term for “Spring.” It’s the time of the lengthening days - that’s where the word comes from. As I write it’s now British Summer Time. But it’s been a long drawn-out winter - and I’ve felt it’s coldness in more ways than one.

Not least there have been the frustrations of a church without a heating system - and a location where the snow has frustrated much that we had planned (both the Hall and the Parish Annual Meetings have had to be re-scheduled for a start). There have been meetings and meals cancelled - and a sense that somehow we are failing because we can’t offer the warm welcome we would wish to give people. Lent has felt lean rather than spring-like. It’s been a hard slog just to get by.

And yet I hope our hearts will be lifted. As I write, we still have to work out just how we will celebrate Good Friday and Easter Day - what should take place in the church (especially if the temperature drops still further) and what should we do in the Hall? I’ve had a sense of loss and exile in being away from the church. But that has made me recognise still more deeply just why people in these last weeks have been so definite that they wanted funerals for their loved ones and baptisms for their children in church regardless of the cold they may feel and the difficulties we might experience. It really is worth it!

And our faith is worth it! That’s what I want to declare. Jesus has little to say about buildings - except to point to a Temple whose destruction he prophesied. That’s not to say that buildings are without value. But it’s to point us to a Temple which is eternal, not the creation of human hands.

We have been taking stock during these last weeks as to just what we need for the good of our church building. There will be appeals and hard work ahead. But meanwhile I hope we have discovered something of what it means to be the Church - in the sense of “Christ’s people.” The Church is first those who are called by God. Let’s be thankful for that - and affirm again: We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!    

Martin Jackson

From the April issue of our Parish Magazine - read it all by clicking here