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Lent numbers
SERMON – 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 1st March 2009 (family service)
Revd. Canon David Pickering
Mark 1.12
And the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness.
This morning we are going to have a bit of an English lesson and a Maths lesson.
Has anyone ever seen the British television programme 'Count Down'?
[Ask ten children to come out to choose and display ten letters.]
LENT PURPLE
Today is the First Sunday of Lent.
So when did Lent begin?
Ash Wednesday
Why the colour purple?
The sign of a penitential Season
We'll come back to Penitential bit in a moment.
First how many days are there in Lent? There was clue in the reading of Jesus being in the wilderness.
40 day.
When does Lent end? Easter
But Easter is six weeks away and six times seven equals 42, and we have already had four days of Lent since last Wednesday, which makes a total of 46 days.
How do we solve the problem? Take out the 6 Sundays.
((6x7)+4)-6=40
So if you are being pedantic about Lent, on Sunday's you can give up giving up on Sundays.
The story of the smoker on Sundays in Lent.
But Lent is not just forty or whatever number of days. It is a season; a penitential season.
What does it mean to be penitential?
To be sorry for where we have gone wrong, and where we are going wrong.
The wonderful thing about the Christian gospel and it really is good news, it that if and when we recognise where we have gone wrong, then God forgives us. In fact God, out of divine love for us is waiting to forgive us.
God sees what we have done wrong and is waiting for us to acknowledge it so that we can be forgiven. We can hardly be forgiven for something that does not seem to be wrong to us.
Lent is about looking very closely to the way in which we live our lives, seeing where we are falling short as caring loving human beings, and asking, knowing that God will and does forgive us.
Where might we have gone wrong this last week?
God forgives us!
Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness preparing himself for the task of paying the price for where we fall and fail.
After the Creed we will the hymn, "forty days and forty nights".
May it encourage us to also go forward over the next forty days seeing where we can improve the pattern and style of our lives so that we can rise to a new life at Easter.
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