I remember my kids loving Helen Oxenbury’s book – “We’re all going on a Bear hunt”:
“We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.
Uh-uh! Mud! Thick oozy mud. We can’t go over it, We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!
Squelch, Squelch, Squelch, Squelch”
In this country Lent falls in Spring; a season of mixed up weather, from sunshine to rain in minutes. If you go for a country walk you are almost certainly going to encounter mud. But we have to go through it to get to the other side. Just as Spring invites us to have a ‘Spring Clean’, Lent invites us to deal with the mess, the mud, in our lives. Not to quickly clean round, but a thorough empty of the cupboards to get all the junk out from the back. We go through Lent to prepare for Easter.
“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me .Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Saviour and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Psalm 51: 7-17 [NIV]
Guy Mowbray
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