We are now about to start the third week of lent and we looking at our series called Love Life, Live Lent. Love Life Live Lent is a new way of marking Lent. Instead of giving up chocolate or going on a detox, it encourages people to undertake a simple act of generosity each day. The actions are small and fun to do, but make a real difference in homes, families and communities
Love Life Live Lent began in Birmingham in 2006 and since then over 250,000 people nationwide have participated. The new Love Life Live Lent booklets feature the best actions from the previous two years’ booklets and the Love Life Live Lent Family Book includes the actions for both adults and kids, plus fascinating Lent and Easter facts, activities, recipes and prayers.
Lent is the Christian season that takes us from the end of winter through to Easter and is linked to the time when Jesus went for 40 days without food in the desert. It is a reminder that Jesus went through suffering to make him stronger and more trusting in Father God.
Many people ‘fast’ during Lent, which means giving up food for a day or sometimes many days. The aim is to help use time and energy thinking about God, and to become cleaned out and pure. The beginning of Lent is marked by Shrove Tuesday. This was the day when everyone used up their best and richest food such as eggs and fat, to prepare for 40 days of limited, mini-meals! Hence the pancakes.
The modern version of Lent encourages us to give things up so that we have more time to concentrate on Jesus. It is a good thing to get our bodies cleaned up, which is why many people give up sweets or drinking at this time of year. But Lent is about allowing God to clean us up too. Some people do really good things during Lent to make a difference to others, or to change the world. That’s what ‘Love life, Live lent’ is all about!
An Irish proverb says – you never miss the water until the well has run dry.
As part of Lent we are wanting to both examine our walk with God and also how that influences our walk in the world. Our focus for tonight is “water”.
Water – something we tale for granted, life becomes complicated when its turned off for repairs or there’s a water shortage. Something we face increasingly as climate change begins to impact the way we live. But its not just us – in fact climate change is likely to impact on the developing world more severely.
We have to find a way to tie the practical and the spiritual together we can’t focus on one to the detriment of the other. So with the reality of the world ringing in our ears lets turn to the Bible and see if it can help us bring our walk with God together with how we walk in this world.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her,
“Will you give me a drink?”
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”John 4;7-15 (The Message)
A meditation – water of life
We’re just going to spend some time focussing on the last part of that reading. It will be left on the screen for you to refer back to you as you need. I’ll lead us through this meditation on a different kind of water or maybe it’s all the same thing.
Make yourself comfortable, think about your breathing, quiet your body and your mind and I’ll read that last slide again, as I do is there a key phrase or aspect that registers with you, stay with that as I read the passage. There’ll be time as I finish reading to follow that connection, it may be the words, it may be an image that it conjures, stay with it in the silence. If the passage doesn’t do that just pick a short phrase and repeat it again and again in your mind in the quiet. Or you may prefer to picture yourself standing by the well with Jesus speaking these words to you put your name into the dialogue and let God continue the encounter in your imagination.
Read last slide again – wait!
I’ll read the last slide for a final time – this time allow that particular phrase, image or encounter to turn you to prayer. Its not complicated allow your mind/imagination to talk with God and to hear from God. You may feel like you are doing nothing that’s fine, you are waiting, receiving, but not being idle.
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Read last slide again – wait!
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
There is an opportunity to talk about the meditation at the end of the presentation