KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 February
“They hated him yet more for his dreams and for his words”
Lent is a serious season of focussed discipline which has its parallels in the traditions of the other world’s religions, like Ramadan, for example, in Islam. The term, Lent, derives from an old English word for the lengthening of the days, something which we have been seeing throughout February, especially with the increasing progress and power of the sun. Late March will bring us to the spring equinox in terms of the seasons of nature and to Holy Week and Easter in terms of the Christian faith.
In the Christian understanding, we are invited to “the observance of a Holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditation upon God’s holy Word.” There are things which we learn about ourselves and one another as well as about God through the Scriptures. The Scriptures read in the Chapel, either from the Hebrew Scriptures which Christians know as the Old Testament or from the New Testament, challenge us about how we think about ourselves and one another and our relation to the world and God. They do so through a rich variety of literary forms of expression.
This Thursday and Friday we have embarked upon a brief consideration of a wonderful narrative sequence in the later chapters of The Book of Genesis. They are about Joseph and his brothers. They are the sons of Jacob, also known as Israel after his ‘wrestling’ with God (or an angel) and being renamed Israel. It means one who strives with God. Lent, too, is about our striving with God – not against God! I am aware of certain atheist groups (churches?!) that have Lenten programmes as well such as ‘giving up God for Lent’! But the story of Joseph and his brothers is a powerful story about the destructive nature of envy, about evil in the form of betrayal but even more about how conscience is convicted and about how good comes out of evil. The story as such has some interesting parallels to the story of Christ’s Passion. In both we confront the nature of human evil and the greater power of God’s truth and love.