When you read this article, we will nearly be at the end of Lent, and heading towards Easter. Lent is for some 40 days of giving something up, maybe a mini diet after the New Year resolution diet has failed! It maybe a time for doing something new and positive for yourself or others. Or maybe a period of reflection and for some it is the time between Pancake Day and Easter where everything carries on as normal, except for some reason, others seem cranky as they are denying themselves chocolate!

Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Lencten, meaning lengthen and refers to the lengthening days of Spring. This period coincided with the Early Church practice that those who wished to enter the faith would learn about it over 40 days and on Easter Sunday would be welcomed and baptised. It was also the time for those who had left the church, to “repent” and get ready for re-admission to the church again on Easter Sunday. The local church was encouraged to walk with those on these journeys and to join in with study and repentance, prayer and fasting.

“Repent” is usually a negative, associated with someone shouting in your face, or a red-faced priest, yelling at a bunch of unimpressed miserable parishioners from a pulpit!

Yet “Repent” should not be a negative word. In the original Greek it means to “change your mind for the better.” It is about concluding in your own mind that something is not right and then doing something positive about it as a result. Someone likened it to the change of a caterpillar to a butterfly.

When Jesus walked on the earth, people “repented”. They were transformed after hearing and encountering Jesus. The values Jesus spoke about, and his followers tried to live up to (and often or not failed at) are still relevant today and many of us, both of faith and of no faith would hold them dear and wish to see them more evident in the world.

We live in days when we can at times wonder at the state of humanity. It’s easy to shake our heads, to worry or bury our heads in the sand and even be part of the problem if we are not careful, but that is not how change happens. It is individuals who help bring change about, by often listening and reflecting and then changing their own attitudes and actions.

In the church, we are encouraged in Lent to reflect on what really matters in life, with the focus of the Easter Story. Partly because of His challenge of hierarchy and authority, Jesus was killed. But Easter, is the story of death to life, darkness to light, despair to hope. It’s about transformation.

Lent is also a good time for anyone, whether people of faith or no faith to reflect and hope for transformation. What can we do to make a difference, in our road, our parish, the Island and the world?