February 2008

Dear Friends,

It will soon be time for us to begin the season of Lent once more and this year the liturgical season will begin with an invitation to join our Anglican friends in a Pan-Cake Supper on Shrove Tuesday and to observe Ash Wednesday the following day.

The season of Lent is traditionally looked upon as a forty day period of penitence, in which there is opportunity for reflection and reorientation as we make our journey towards the events of the Passion and the glory of the resurrection. The inspiration for this season comes of course from the experience of Jesus in the wilderness, related in the Gospels and retold each year. Having received the Holy Spirit at baptism, the gospel writers tell us that Jesus was driven out into the wilderness for forty days where he was tempted in a variety of ways. He remained steadfast and faithful and refused to have his calling twisted and maligned by competing agendas. He succeeded where the people of Israel failed during their forty years in the wilderness.

This year at Otley Methodist Church we have chosen to follow the Lenten Cross liturgy which will help us as a church family to reflect more deeply on the Lenten journey. A bare wooden cross will be erected in church and each week a symbol will be added to the cross – for example the crown of thorns, a bowl and towel, a purple cloth etc. Each Sunday there will be a reading from scripture, explaining the significance of the symbol and then the singing of a Passiontide hymn. This continues until Easter Day when we acknowledge the glory of the resurrection, by removing the symbols of passion and smothering the cross with Spring Flowers. As a congregation you will be invited to bring a small posy of spring flowers ready to come forward and place on the cross. Thus the Lenten Cross is stripped bare and becomes the Easter Cross smothered in colour with the beauty of flowers.

If you have not experienced this before, it is a very moving experience and will help us to enter more deeply into the wonder of what we are celebrating. The Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians reminds us of how important this period of time is when he says the following:

‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.’ (1Corinthians 15:20-22)

With best wishes, Julian