SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT Since Christmas we have been following the journey of Jesus. Our worship began with the Baptism of the Lord – just as our own individual Christian journeys began in the water of baptism in the font by the Church door. Now in Lent, we follow our Lord to his inevitable death on the cross for our salvation. Like our Lord, we all journey towards inevitable death. Each time we walk down the aisle of the Church, we travel the exact same route that our own coffins will one day take before they rest before the altar of the living God in the ‘crossing’ of our church. The journey of Jesus does not end in execution on the Cross. So, our own human journeys do not end in a coffin in the crossing before the altar in the church. After death, Christ rose on the third day. Christ now calls us to join him as Bride at the ‘wedding feast of the Lamb’ – the banquet prepared for his disciples. Christ, who passed through death into eternal life, will join us at that final feast just as surely as he meets us every week in the “banquet of the Lord” on the Lord’s Table here in this place. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Every time we receive the Eucharist, we walk again from Baptism through a wilderness to the place where we will briefly rest in death before proceeding to the Resurrection feast on the Lord’s own table. The walk we make every Sunday is also the symbol of every earthly walk within this blessed company of faithful people who are heirs through hope of Christ’s everlasting Kingdom. Here is a prayer that reminds us of our ultimate destiny in Jesus Christ, our Lord: Lord Jesus, Redeemer of all, hear my prayer. For the love you bear to those who ask forgiveness, look mercifully on me, as once you looked on Mary Magdalene and on Peter who denied you. Look on me, Lord Jesus Christ, as you looked on the thief on his cross and on every sinner whom you have ever forgiven. Look on me, merciful Lord, as you looked on your mother, Mary, standing in sorrow beneath your cross. Let me feel in my heart her compassion for you, and let my eyes weep for the sorrows my sins have caused. Call me from darkness to my Father's house, give me a new heart and a place at your side at the banquet of your kingdom. Amen. Maybe this prayer is an appropriate one to use in your pew when, with a penitent and obedient heart, you prepare to receive the Blessed Sacrament, the gift of God. John+ Lenten Post-script "Jesus grinned and smiled gently, pointing to his chest: 'I am the lesson! Learn me, learn me by heart.' " - Edward Hays, The Gospel of Gabriel (imaginative version of the Gospel story)

The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent looks at the post-baptismal journey of Jesus into the wilderness. It is easy to connect that journey or our own ones with hardship, struggle, suffering, and temptation. But the Gospel's Temptations of Jesus in the wilderness can seem a little remote or disconnected to some people today. The first temptation -- stone to bread -- is easiest to grasp. It is easy to imagine the gnawing hunger of an itinerant person fasting for 40 days in a world that offered bare subsistence living at best. It is even easy to imagine for well-fed North Americans whose idea of hunger is feeling a bit peckish mid-way between breakfast and lunch. But making a connection between temptation and the needs and desires of physical beings is still easy. The other two temptations are more challenging. The second temptation -- to worship someone other than God -- is harder for some in this age to imagine -- even for people who find screen demons, movie devils and CGI monsters much more credible than God of life and of love who moves through and beyond everything. And it requires a measure of self-reflection to grasp that the self-absorbed "me" being worshipped in Selfie, Tweet, and Instagram is actually a subordinate being -- someone other than God. And the final temptation of testing God is something familiar to all or most of us. Who at one time or another has not struggled for belief in God? Or who has not been tempted to doubt God in a crisis when human demands do not seem to have been met? Do we not test God when we make worship or offerings or ministry or church attendance contingent on divine compliance with prayerful wishes -- for help, or for a healing or for deliverance, or for security, or for a parking space close to the mall door? Was there actually that same truth in the long ago ironic and reflexive comic mantra of Flip Wilson's Josephine, "The devil made me do it"?

"You are dust and to dust you will return." Today is Ash Wednesday. This statement (and accompanying actions) is one of the two focal points of today's liturgy. The perspective that these words and actions should create runs counter to the dominant culture in which western Christians find themselves. In this age of Twitter and Selfies and Facebook pages, many of behave as if we were the stars in our own movies -- that sometimes the smallest detail of "my life" has earth-shattering significance to some online acquaintance whom we are texting while ignoring the friend across the table with whom we are supposed to breaking bread. Is one value of Ash Wednesday the reminder that the movie is not about "me" -- that at best each human is an extra (if not just a word in the dialogue) in the great drama of creation and redemption?

At last evening's Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, a record number of parishioners and visitors sat down to an incredibly great meal -- 5 kinds of pancakes (regular, whole wheat, gluten-free, blueberry and apple turnover). local maple syrup, butter, and locally made sausages! The hard-working kitchen crew did a fantastic job of preparing and serving those who came -- including a significant number of people who had never before been inside the church! All who helped deserve an incredible vote of thanks.

Preparations for Ash Wednesday are under way. The Choir has been preparing music that will bring a somewhat different tone to worship. As well as typical Lenten hymns, anthems, and psalms, several apprpriate BCP canticles will provide a verbal, musical, and thematic thread to the Sunday choral Mass in contemporary language until Easter. The Imposition of Ashes will take place at both Masses on Wednesday, At 2:00 pm, a group of parishioners will gather as Eucharistic Companions in the Fireplace Room at Montgomery Village (a senior residential community) on Riddelll (the 109 by-pass) in west Orangeville, Hymns will accompany the Ash Wednesday liturgy and Mass. At 7:30 pm in the church, the Ash Wednesday liturgy will be offered withiin the cvontext of a contemporary language Choral Mass, This Sunday of the Transfiguration our focus will be how we see Jesus -- how we struggle to understand the Incarnation -- that "the Word became flesh" and lived amongst us. In an age when Anselm's thinking lacks resonance or relevance with dominant thought forms, thinking about the identity of Jesus provides a useful approach to Lent and the Paschal mystery. As a footnote, recalling the glory of the Transfigured Christ in pre-Lenten ordinary time is inspired. Aside from the value of this narrative as a preface to Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, it avoids the date when events in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. are borne in the minds of many.

With Lent just a month away, plans are underway for this year's Annual Pancake Supper & Pie/Dessert Auction. Tickets are available from the church office: 519-941-1950. Beginning with last Sunday's liturgy for the Baptism of Jesus, our focus is on "doorways" -- transitional (possibly transformational) places where it is possible to cross-over (or move back and forth) between one reality and another. Baptism as a portal was considered in the context of the portal that is the Mass.