Letter for March 2025

Dear friends,

It seems this year that we have waited a long time for the start of Lent. Easter is late and so Lent will start on Ash Wednesday 5th March, when we will have a short 10.30 morning service in church to launch this season of preparation.

So, as well as waiting a long while for a sniff of warmer weather, we have also been waiting for the ‘season of waiting’. Lent is the time when we consciously spend the time waiting for Easter.

The focus of our waiting this year is the teaching series called ‘Meals with Jesus in Luke’s Gospel’. This is the teaching series from the material used by our Genesis Children’s Group. And it is remarkable how often Jesus is reported to be sharing a meal with friends and strangers alike.

Indeed, some of Jesus’ opponents tried to sully his reputation by referring to his willingness to eat with a wide variety of people, and not always the most respectable of people.  

In Luke 7:33, Jesus expressed frustration with the chatter at the time:

John the Baptist avoided eating bread and drinking wine, and you say ‘he is possessed’. I have come eating and drinking, and you say ‘here is a glutton and a drunkard, keeping company with all sorts of undesirables’.

Jesus was unflappable. He didn’t let cheap shots knock him off course.

So it is that Christians are glad to join in times of fasting and focus on faith (like John the Baptist). And we are glad to make the most of the chance to eat together at significant times (as Jesus was willing to do, in order to share the lives of those he was seeking to reach with his message of salvation and transformation).

One of the meals we shall hear about on Sundays in March is the Last Supper. It was an annual festival feast, in which Jesus launched a lasting way to be remembered.

There will also be a church ‘bring and share lunch’ on Sunday 23rd March. Lent is a time for fasting, on its weekdays and Saturdays. But Lent is also a time for feasting together.

On the Sundays of Lent, we break the fast and enjoy fellowship and good food together. If you had ever wondered how the fasting Days of Lent add up to 40, that is how. We count the fasting days but not the Sundays and we get to 40, the same number as Jesus’ fast in the wilderness before the start of his public ministry.

It has been a long time coming. But don’t forget to make the most of Lent. And so prepare to make the most of Easter.

Yours in Christ,

Rob