Lent is upon us already, and we begin the penitential season this Wednesday. I will be presiding over a beautiful service of Holy Communion with the Imposition of Ashes, with choral music from Ad Hoc Voices. You are very welcome to join me at 7.30pm at St Andrew’s Church, Clayhidon (but please bring a torch and wellies!) .

Although Lent is the mirror of Advent, it somehow has less of the joy and expectation that December’s season has. During Advent we reflect upon the things that we need to repent of in order to be ready to meet Jesus at the crib, and in Lent we do the same, but looking towards the cross, and the empty grave. There are no festive advent calendars (or should that be Lenten calendars) to count down the days, instead the talk is about what we are ‘giving up for lent’, although in more recent years many are thinking of the good that they can take up instead.

Lent feels miserable. Just as we are coming out of the doom and gloom of Winter and Spring is upon us, the church sends us spiralling back down. But does this have to be the case?

Ash Wednesday is a day when traditionally we meet, penitentially, and to have the sign of the cross marked on our foreheads in the blackened ash of last year’s palm crosses, burned and mixed with oil. We hear the words, ‘From dust you have come and from dust you shall return’ in case we aren’t aware enough of our own mortality. Growing up and attending a church school Ash Wednesday was a half day holiday: we would walk from school to church for the service, and then our parents could take us home to enjoy, hopefully, the spring weather. In medieval times, monks would give pretzels to locals to remind them to pray, the twisted knot shaped like hands in prayer. In the Orthodox church the tradition is very different: families fly kites!

In our readings today, we have Jesus teaching on fasting, which is the technical, theological term for ‘giving up’ chocolate biscuits (or other nice things). To fast means to abstain from one thing in order to make space for another. Traditionally fasting would be accompanied by prayer and by alms giving: so I might fast from lunch, spend my lunch hour reading this year’s lent book and praying for family, friends, and neighbours, and I could give my lunch money to the church or another charitable organisation.

Jesus expected us to fast. He didn’t give us many instructions on how to do so, which means that fasting was a part of his Jewish culture and would have been understood. Instead he gave instructions on what not to do:

Do not look dismal.

Matthew 6:16

It sounds as if those who fasted did so in order not just to pray, but in order to be seen to be praying, to look pious! Disfiguring their faces and fully engaging with the whole sackcloth and ashes vibe. The point of fasting is to come closer to God, no-one else needs to know what we are doing. So when someone asks you what you are giving up for lent, or how you are fasting you can simply reply, ‘That’s between me and God’. I am reminded of the priest in Chocolat who was so abstemious in his fasting that he ended up being discovered on Easter morning in the shop window of the chocolaterie having fallen foul of temptation at the last minute: fallen foul of temptation but also his own judgementalism of others.

Our New Testament passage for today, gives us a different slant on why we fast: we are God’s representatives:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

2 Corinthians 5:20

It is all too easy to take our relationship with God for granted. How easily have we seen people take God’s word and twist it to suit their own agenda, and there seems to be an epidemic of well-intentioned (?) heresy taking place in our own times. Taking time to pause, to remove ourselves from our own desires and to reflect on God’s is the healthiest ‘cleanse’ we can do. We could think of lent as a health spa for the soul. What do we need to be cleansed from, healed from, strengthened and affirmed for?

And now I am reminded of Esther who ‘for such a time as this’ was entered into a ‘beauty pageant’ so that she might win the king’s heart, hand, and favour in order to save her people from being annihilated.

For such a time as we find ourselves in, we need to strengthen ourselves spiritually, come closer to God, and take a step away from the world. For such a time as this we need to fast and pray, and perhaps give to those who have the power to do good.

For such a time as this.

You can read today’s Gospel passage here, the New Testament passage here, and discover more about Esther here.

If you are in the Upper Culm Valley Mission Community why not join us for our weekly lent course based upon Elaine Storkey’s Meeting God in Matthew.

Fancy a Spiritual Spa? The Ashes to Ashes Retreat in a Box is available to order here.