Peter’s Progress – 14 Mrch 2014

I can get sucked into thinking life is all about health, wealth and prosperity, success and expansion.
I’m then tempted to think my Christian faith is about this too and want it from the church.
In my line of work I’m often with sick or dying people. Then I know what really counts. When family and friends gather at a funeral they are there to mourn the loss of a person, not a business empire or a golfing handicap or some other temporal achievement. It’s the quality of relationships laid down over a lifetime that is honoured. Love.
The amazing thing is that the currency of love has little to do with health, wealth or prosperity. I’ve seen rich and poor people, healthy and sickly alike, credited in their death for displaying incredible care and concern for others during their lifetime. You can see the ripple effect of a life well lived, a life invested in the lives of others that went beyond human self-centeredness or self-preservation – a life lived in love of others.
Love is the great leveller.
Many churches during this time are keeping Lent. They have done so since the days of the Early Church. New believers would go through an intensive time of preparation before being baptised in a great celebration on Easter Sunday. Different branches of the church have preserved varying traditions. Some focus more on fasting during lent, others on teaching, yet others on praying. Some churches encourage people to prepare for their own death, to take stock of their life, and importantly, to ask forgiveness in any relationships that have soured over the past year. But what all these churches seek during Lent is to contemplate more fully the death and resurrection of Jesus and the radical implications for this life and the life to come!
Yes, I know. I hear your thoughts. This should be done all the time. (Agreed.) But I so easily get caught up in other pursuits. I need to be reminded of what really matters – the love of God in Christ and the way this should be reflected in my love of others.
Maybe think what you need to reaffirm in the run up to Easter…