Lent Devotionals

Lent is a traditional period of prayer, reflection and fasting leading towards the highest point in the calendar - Easter weekend! Lent lasts forty days, because forty is a symbolic number for transitional (or, to use a technical term, liminal) time periods. At the time of Noah, the rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights, and the flood wiped away the old order of things and prepared the way for a new beginning. At the time of Moses, the people of Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness, in order for the nation to transition from a slavery mindset to a generation ready for freedom. And our Lord Jesus himself, in preparation for his ministry to begin, fasted for 40 days in the wilderness. Forty days is long enough to break old habits and form new ones. It is long enough for a thorough detox - physically or spiritually. It is long enough to grieve and let go of some areas of pain and loss. And so lent is the turning of the Christian year, a chance to reject that which is unhelpful, unnecessary, sinful, enough time to declutter one's soul, with a focus on the new life and new beginnings offered by the cross of Christ.

These daily devotional reflections, written by a range of RFC members, are designed and organised in such a way as to help you on your journey out of the old and towards the new. Let this be a transitional time, a season of change, a period of transformation. Lent this year begins on Wednesday 22nd February and ends on maundy Thursday, 6th April.

Andy McCullough

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