Right at the end of this month, we will celebrate the great Christian festival of Easter. Leading up to it, by way of preparation, is the season of Lent – so named because the days are ‘lengthening’. I view Lent as a sort of rehearsal or getting ready, like ‘net practice’ for a cricketer or choir practice for a concert.

Easter is all about new life, God’s new world that results from the resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus died, we read that there was ‘darkness over the whole land’. The crucifixion of Jesus was indeed a dark moment. And what God raising Jesus from death showed was that in moments of extreme darkness God acts. He makes of it something new.

The season of Lent running right up until Sunday 31st March is our chance to invite God to do something new in our own lives, to lighten our darkness, to be the light for someone else.

Do look at the calendar to see the services in March, the soup lunch at All Saints on the Wednesday before Easter and join us at St Martin’s on Easter Day in celebration of God’s new created world.

With every blessing,

Stephen