Church letter

March 2025

Click for the church letter from February 2025

Are you ready for a 40-day journey?

It’s strange how 40-day periods crop up again and again in the Bible. They are usually times of preparation or testing:

• In Genesis, it rains for 40 days and 40 nights
• In Exodus, Moses is on Mount Sinai for 40 days, praying and fasting, and returns with the Ten Commandments on stone tablets
• After 40 years travelling through the wilderness back to the promised land, the scouts are sent out for 40 days and return reporting on the good things they have found
• In the story of David and Goliath, the Israelite people are taunted for 40 days before David defeats Goliath
• 40 days after Jesus’ birth we mark his presentation in the temple by Mary and Joseph
• Jesus, following his baptism, is in the wilderness being tested and tempted for 40 days
• Following his resurrection, Jesus is with the disciples for 40 days until his ascension to heaven

On 5 March we enter another 40-day period: the time of Lent, starting on Ash Wednesday. It is the beginning of a reflective but busy time within the church, which seems ironic and contradictory. We have a service in the evening on Ash Wednesday to mark the start of Lent and to reflect upon our own times when we have fallen short of how we should be acting and treating others. Our Lent Course this year is entitled, ‘A Pilgrimage through Prayer, and begins the following week on 12 March. We’ll explore different aspects of prayer, and travel together and learn from one another about prayer and pilgrimage.

We’re meeting on a Wednesday evening at 7.30pm, in the Mission Church in Sandhurst. I really encourage you, in these concerning times, to get involved, journey together, and through it draw closer to God - the God who cares about you and the things in your life. We each do that through prayer.

At the end of the Lent Course, we enter the thoughtful time of Holy Week, beginning with the celebratory entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We continue to journey with a reflective service on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (see the church calendar for times and places). On Thursday - Maundy Thursday - we remember the events of ‘the last supper’ and the with a quiet, reflective service. Then on Easter Sunday we awake early and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

There is a sunrise service at St Nicholas Church (followed by breakfast in the Mission Church).

We then gather once again for communion together: our Eucharist, our thanksgiving meal together. It is quite a 40-day journey through Lent, but it ends with a joyous celebration on Easter Sunday. I really encourage you to engage with this period of preparation for Easter.

Revd David Commander, Rector and Area Dean