As I was filling in some paperwork today I asked the person I was with what the date was.  “The 17^th January.” came the reply.  “Goodness, is it really?” I said.  I imagine we have all been there; all had an experience of feeling that time is marching past, almost racing on and the days fly by.  By the time you read this it will be February, and while Christmas may feel like a long time ago, when we have our Ash Wednesday Services on 14^th February it will have only been six weeks since the year turned. 

While things may feel as though they race by, in one sense we want things to move on.  As I write we are feeling the chill with a biting wind and the possibility of snow – again.  And while we long for slightly warmer weather and the Spring that will undoubtedly come we are aware that time will move forward, the seasons will change and before long we will be in winter again. 

Thing circular movement of the seasons is mirrored by our year in the church.  That has a circular nature to is as well.  We begin our year on Advent Sunday and go through the seasons of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, the weeks of Trinity to the Kingdom Season in the Autumn and then back to Advent.  The circular nature of the church year helps us to in our spiritual journey with God and with his Son Jesus Christ.  With each new season of the church we have a different focus giving us the opportunity to learn more of God and draw closer to him.

And so, the next season we come to in our church year is Lent, the major penitential season of the church.  A time of year that helps us to focus on our lives and place of God in them.  A time when we can perhaps take a look at ourselves and way we are living and try, with God's guidance to make those spiritual and attitude changes that will help us to live better with one another and with ourselves.  When we are in Lent it is easy to trick ourselves into thinking that we are being more spiritually focused while in fact indulging in a kind of tokenism.  But Lent is more than giving a “nod to God.”  God calls us in this time not to offer him tokens but to offer him ourselves and our lives and to let him work in us by his Spirit to radically transform us so that we become closer to him and able to live more fully as disciples of Christ, through every season of life and every season of the church year. 

Each passing season of the “natural” year gives us something new to focus on and marvel at, and so each season of the church year and its constant and regular rhythm bring us new insights and new things to think on too.

Every blessing

Tim