7

Reflection

Beloved,
as I write this outside everything is white, a dazzling white, because at the moment the sun is shining on the snow. It is silent apart from the geese that have just flown over. It is hard to believe that we are now in the season of Lent and Easter is only six weeks away.

Are you like me? Do you do a lot of thinking in Lent? do you take stock of your lives, a bit like some of us do at New Year. This year like none before, we know what wilderness means, as we look back and remember all we have had to do without and I don't mean material things, as I am sure we all managed to find toilet rolls. No, I am talking about something much more precious, our friends and family. How many times in a phone conversation have you said, 'I just need a hug' we still can only imagine that wonderful warm feeling when someone puts their arms round you and all the love that they are feeling is transferred to you. And then there are masks: very necessary but even if we smile with our eyes, we miss seeing someone's face light up when we see them. Yes, I think we can visualise the wilderness and the temptations it can bring.

We don't have to look far to imagine Noah and the flood. We may not have suffered too much here, but we only have to remember the floods in our beloved Swaledale, where it was reported that they had floods of Biblical proportions.

When God makes his covenant with Creation after the flood, it is a covenant, not for a few, but for 'every living creature that is with you. Every time the covenant is mentioned so are the creatures who are to be involved in this new covenant. Noah's actions mean humans and animals destinies are bound together forever which is what God wanted in the first Creation story. According to Genesis, human beings have always been closely bound up with the rest of Creation. There is another reflection or sermon there, because as humans we have not exercised proper stewardship of Creation, but that is for another day. The intimate and necessary connection with human creation and the rest of what God has made is part of what Lent is supposed to help us rediscover. Now that we can see what is going on in the rest of the world so easily, it is tempting to believe we can isolate and protect ourselves from what is happening out there. We know to our cost that we can only shield to a certain extent. We build houses to shield ourselves from the elements, but shielding had taken on a whole new meaning in the pandemic. We generate electricity to keep out the dark, to make night into day, we develop medicines to keep death at bay, the list is endless but when the forces of nature break through as they have done this last year, and affected all of us, we are outraged.

At the end of the story of Noah we hear about the rainbow, Genesis 9 v 16, 'whenever a rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures on the earth.' This is mind-blowing, as we see rainbows all over, paying tribute to our NHS.

God remembers his covenant in the rainbow, but I wonder if humankind remembers it too.

I said before that Lent gives us time to think and reflect and this year more than any other.

Jesus ministry didn't begin with warm glowing feelings but with rigorous self-discipline, painful soul searching and cost counting. When later he spoke about our need to count the cost of his discipleship he spoke from personal experience. When we are down and having a moan, we need to remember that Jesus never said, that to follow him would be easy. Committing ourselves wholeheartedly to God's service is indeed a costly business. Most of us feel fine about obedience until it differs from what we want in life. Maybe if we learned from Jesus example and recognise that conflict is a valid part of the process. Jesus knew he had some difficult things to face and he knew he would not be ready for his ministry until he had taken time out to face them squarely no matter how unpleasant that might be. Do we deny our fears and questions? Do we edit our prayers, before we share them with God as we consider them inappropriate material?

And that believe me is no good, God wants the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth God wants our real honest selves and can't begin working with us in earnest unless we are willing to share with him everything. If there is anything we feel ashamed to mention to God, then that is probably the one most important thing he wants us to say.

It is not easy is it? We are so good at changing agendas, I would hate to be described as devious, but I fear as humans we have at times devious natures. And that is why we need a wilderness, and time to be alone with God. We may have had to restrict our contact with our loved ones, but we never need to restrict our time with God. The wilderness is honesty and we need to get used to its bare and uncompromising landscape where conflicts are bound to confront us but from which we will emerge stronger and more integrated as people ready to go forward in God's power.
The day is coming when we will be together again and perhaps it will not be without problems because our lives have changed and maybe a bit of conflict resolution will be needed, but if we remember the message of the rainbow that whenever God sees it, he remembers his everlasting covenant with us. We are not alone, even in the wilderness because through Jesus, God is with us, yesterday, today and hallelujah forever.

Amen