A Lenten reflection: ‘Christ’s revolution of love’

The period of Lent is perhaps best understood as a journey. It is a spiritual journey that the Christian Church embarks upon each year.

It commences on Ash Wednesday and travels through until Easter. It is a time of preparation. It offers a chance to reflect upon our lives and see how they can best dovetail into the story of Christ and the vision that He invites us to be a part of.

The Christian faith affirms that in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ there is an invitation from God to enter into a fuller way of life. This invitation is paradoxical in nature.

It is an invitation to give up one kind of life to find a more abundant life. The way that some describe it is that through saying no to the selfish life of the ego and embracing a life that serves others and the world we strangely and unexpectedly find a more meaningful life.

This is the life of the Spirit.

Christ came into the world to offer a new way of living. Into a world that used coercive power to subjugate and control, Christ began a movement of revolutionary love. He invited his disciples to ‘get with the program’ of transforming the world through love.

That same invitation has come to people through the ages and it continues today.

UnitingCare as a ministry of the Uniting Church sits under this “revolution of love” banner. In a world that continues to try and transform through the myth of redemptive violence, the call of Christ still says “there is a better way”.

Lent is a time for reflecting on this great truth. It is a time for us to check the compass of our lives and align ourselves again with this great vision of a world renewed and transfigured by love.

The Rev. Peter Pereira is Director of Mission UnitingCare NSW.ACT. This reflection first appeared in The Journey, Issue 6, February 2013.