Journey Through Lent

What if we view this desert time of Lent as not just a time to reflect or to lament or to confess or to fast, but a time where we learn to be free. Megan Westra

You may recall that in Pilgrims Progress, that Pilgrim gets to the foot of the Cross and kneels in penitence and at that moment the load he is carrying, symbolising his burden of sin falls off.  The problem with so many Christians is that too often, when they experience repentance at the cross and go to move on, they pick up their burden and put it on their back once more.

The old prayer speaks of God "in whose service is perfect freedom." The paradox is not as opaque as it sounds. It means that to obey Love itself, which above all else wishes us well, leaves us the freedom to be the best and gladdest that we have it in us to become. The only freedom Love denies us is the freedom to destroy ourselves ultimately.

An old Peanuts cartoon has Lucy standing in the outfield of Charlie Brown’s baseball diamond. As a fly ball sails toward her, she remembers all the other times she’s dropped the ball. And she drops this one, too.

Lucy calls out to Charlie Brown, who’s standing on the pitcher’s mound: “I almost had it, but then my past got in my eyes!”

Paul could have easily dropped the ball of ministry because his past got in his eyes. But that didn’t happen because Paul understood that letting go of the past is critical if you want to hold on to God’s future.  “Forgetting what lies behind,” Paul writes, “and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)