Journey tthrough Lent
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Here is the latest in the ongoing series of newspaper articles by my friend Dr John Dempster.
This was published this week in the Highland Group of Newspapers under the heading Christian Viewpoint.
Reproduced with the permission of Dr Dempster.
JOURNEY THROUGH LENT
“My friend’s giving up sweets for Lent,’ one of my daughters told me, and then she issued a challenge – ‘What are you giving up?’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I could pass on chocolate and cakes?’
We’re now a third of the way through Lent – the 40 days (excluding Sundays) before Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday. Lent reminds Christians it’s time to get ready to celebrate the Easter good news once again - that Jesus rose from death bringing hope for the entire universe.
During Lent, we examine our hearts, reminding ourselves that our sinfulness and failure as human beings made it necessary for Jesus to die on our behalf. ‘Giving up’ luxuries symbolises our willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter the cost to focus on God and open ourselves to the reality of his freely-given love.
The next day after work, I was sitting in the kitchen with a mug of strong black coffee and a huge slice of chocolate cake. How hard it is to give up even the smallest things!
We reveal the genuineness of our Christian faith by the level of our commitment and by the price we’re prepared to pay to maintain that commitment. If my Christianity is simply a set of ideas about God which gives me comfort but costs me nothing then I suspect my faith is a charade, my sense of hope an illusion.
Jesus himself insisted that following him is demanding. Firstly, there’s the cost of discipline. The discipline, for example, of praying regularly, reflecting on the Bible and absorbing its message. The discipline of constantly keeping God in mind as we do even the most ordinary of activities. The discipline of denying ourselves legitimate things in order to concentrate more intently on God.
Following such disciplines doesn’t mean subjecting ourselves to a hard-to-follow set of joyless rules. Rather we discover to our delight that the disciplines form a gateway through which we pass into deeper encounter with God.
Then there’s the cost of obedience to God. Obedience as we live our lives his way, putting into practice the values of his kingdom – love, peace, honesty, justice, purity of mind and body and action. And obedience as we explore and freely choose to embrace the specific challenges God gives us.
In one sense, finding and following God’s path for our lives is a joy, for in choosing that way we will be doing what we were made for. But it will involve a cost, as we will have to sacrifice other possibilities for our lives, perhaps giving up our personal comfort and safety, or relationships which have meant much to us.
I find choosing to obey God is a battle. The arrogant part of me which wants to be self-determining despises that word ‘obedience’, but there’s another, quieter voice urging me to embrace all God has for me.
The consequences of following Jesus make up the final price we must pay. One of the reasons the Archbishop of Canterbury was criticised recently for his comments about incorporating elements of Islamic sharia law into the British legal system was the fact that in some Muslim countries where sharia is enforced strictly, the punishments inflicted on those judged to have broken the law are disproportionate and inhumane.
Muslim people who embrace the Christian faith in these countries are ostracised by their families, and can face torture or even death. But whatever our culture there will be consequences if we wholeheartedly commit to following Jesus.
Willingness to pay the price puts us in the place where God meets with us. One of the Street Pastors who have been going out into the centre of Inverness late on Friday and Saturday nights helping revellers told me about her team’s sense of God’s presence.
They’re talking to a young man, who is vaguely antagonistic to the Street Pastors concept. .One of the team shares an insight he’s just received that this young man is in pain. ‘Yes, you’re right. I injured myself a few weeks ago.’ The team offers to pray for him, and he accepts. By the time ‘Amen’ is said, the pain has disappeared. Miraculous things are happening there, in the city centre, because Christians are willing to pay the price.
Some followers of Islam are committed to jihad, a holy war of terror against the West. As Christians, we too are called to wage a holy war in society and in our own hearts, but the weapons we’re issued with are not guns and bombs, but love and prayer. Jesus was willing to lay down his life, not to destroy others, but to give them life in a new dimension. And as we journey through Lent it is in his footsteps we’re following.
John A. H. Dempster
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