Comment by Harborough churches: All Change?

Is 2025 a time for changing direction, for turning back? For Christians, that’s a question that makes this season of Lent, and the weeks that lead to Holy Week and Easter, a serious challenge. This year, with so many uncertainties and dangers in the world, it is particularly sharp.

So, as well as listening and watching the news, we listen carefully to the biblical story of Jesus Christ. In Luke’s account, Jesus calls for a turning back to God. So, what kind of repentance was needed? Jesus explored that question by telling stories rooted in ordinary life.

In first-century Palestine, people knew about vineyards. The devout Jewish people thought of Israel as God’s vineyard; the nation he had established and lovingly tended. Often a fig tree would grow within its boundaries – another picture of a fruitful people. But what if the tree is fruitless? In a parable Jesus told (Luke 13:6-9), the issue of barrenness is tackled by the owner and his gardener. The owner wants to cut the fig tree down, but is urged to agree a time-limited ‘stay of execution’ to give it one last chance.

Is our season of Lent this year an opportunity for us to change course, as a community and in our own lives? Can we recognise the urgent challenge of God’s kingdom and stop burying our heads in the sand?

Jesus, in what he said and did, provided a powerful picture of that future kingdom. It would be a realm of compassion and justice. The poor would be blessed and the hungry filled. The excluded would find a joyful home with God. But the wealthy and the well-connected would face a reversal of fortunes. The once widely-admired role-models would find that the tide had turned.

The key to finding a way into the kingdom was the ‘Golden Rule’: Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31). In other words: live as if all people are of equal importance in the eyes of their Maker.

This wasn’t just a dream. The New Testament shows us a new age, and it was coming in Christ’s response to need. His healing ministry brought teeming crowds surging towards him to experience his touch, as power flowed out from him (Luke 6:17-19). No-one was ignored.

During Lent, we turn away from bewilderment and despair to the vision of that kingdom – the cause for which Jesus was willing to give everything, including his own life.

Are we willing to embrace that vision, and live as followers of Jesus, trusting that the fruits of our discipleship will bring hope and joy to an anxious world?