Unlike other Christian traditions we Presbyterians are not required to stick rigidly to the Christian Year and yet many of us have found value in observing seasons like Advent and Lent as well as the major seasons of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. Our Advent and Lent services in St Paul's have been well supported over the years, giving us an opportunity to reflect on some of the more challenging aspects of our faith. In the end the whole purpose behind these seasons is that we emerge from them with a firmer grasp of the faith and a deeper commitment to the life of discipleship.
It is not automatic of course. Mere participation is no assurance that anything will happen in our inner being. We cannot work up or force a blessing from God just by adhering to certain spiritual practices. Elizabeth Jennings has a poem called ‘Making A Silence’ in which she reflects that certain silences can be commanded like the silence that is needed for a child to sleep or for a sick person to have rest. There is also a silence that happens naturally when everyone else is asleep ‘And you can feel the stars/And mercy over the world.’ In the end, though, there is the greatest silence of all:
‘But the greatest one of them all
Is a gift entirely unasked for,
When God is felt deeply within you
With his infinite gracious peace.’
What she is thinking of here is a silence which cannot be created by us and does not happen naturally but is the work of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God. That can come to us at anytime, unsought and unanticipated. People have told me of times when challenging experiences brought them to the very end of themselves and yet they felt a sense of God’s peace at the very core of their being. It seemed to come as a gift for that moment.
This does not mean that nothing is demanded of us in the spiritual life. It is possible for our inner being to be so cluttered with self-centered priorities, deadening routines and pressing duties that we are no longer turned wholeheartedly towards our God. That’s when we need to consciously create space for God to do a new thing in our lives. It is His gift to give but we must be eager to receive. Jesus said: ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.’ (Matthew 7: 7-8)
Even Jesus needed space for his soul to breathe. Luke tells us that there came a time in His ministry when there was considerable pressure on Him to preach and to heal but ‘Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.’ (Luke 5: 15-16). So we need to find times for prayer, reflection on the Word, and worship with fellow believers in order to keep a tight connection with our God. I hope the coming season of Lent will bless us in this way and that there may be Springtime in our souls.
