Lent
By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters February 16, 2024

 

 

 

 

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:

Sunday, February 18 Service Video

 

 

Join us for Worship Sunday at 10:00 AM followed by fellowship and refreshments in the HeBrews Café

 

 

  • Upcoming Senior’s Fellowship events include a games afternoon on Wednesday, February 21 at 1:30 and a Bowling and Pizza Supper on Saturday, March 16 from 4:00 to 7:00 PM at Coronation Lanes. Tickets ($30) for the bowling event are on sale after church on Sundays. While this event is being planned by the Senior’s Fellowship Team it is absolutely open to anyone of any age!!!

 

  • World Day of Prayer is on Friday, March 1. While the local inter-church committee has not been reconstituted following the pandemic we are pleased to once more offer a link to the online national service: https://youtu.be/QzruEM-91Rs?si=nO2NO7KwzWMBB1ip . This year’s service has been prepared by Christian women in Palestine.

 

  • The annual Crowdfunder campaign for the Winnipeg Free Press Faith in the News Project has launched. You may be aware that CUC includes support of this initiative in our church budget. Individuals who would like to learn more about it can visit: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/support-faith

 

  • For news and events please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, February 18, 2024.

The seasons of the church year are ‘marked’ in a number of symbolic ways at Charleswood United Church. Not that many years ago we had a quilting guild who met here once a week. They designed and created a quilted banner for every season of the church year and all of our festival days. This week we took down the starry night of Epiphany and put up the cross of Lent.

For the pulpit, lectern, and communion table at the front of the church we have sets of silk ‘antependia’ that you find in many churches. These get changed with the church year. They are purple for Advent and Lent, red for Pentecost, white for Christmas and Easter, and green for what is unoriginally called Ordinary Time.

The first half of our hymn book, Voices United, is laid out according to the church calendar. Not surprisingly the first hymns are advent hymns as that season comes first in the church year. Next comes the carols of Christmas, the songs of Epiphany and so on. Over the next six weeks we will be singing from the Lent section supplemented by other hymns chosen depending on the theme of the service.

When we were looking for a millennium project 25 years ago we focussed in on the windows in the sanctuary. A stained-glass artist named Judy Jennings met and worked with members of the church on a design. Eventually she presented us with three different sets of drawings and left it for us to choose. The design that she and we felt most strongly about were based on the church year as told in images, colours, and texture.

Judy thought that the church year had such resonance in our congregation that it would be the best choice (though she had an abstract option that told a story using nothing but colour which I must admit was quite cool).

I was looking at the Lent window this week and included it in the online service. The windows ‘speak’ to one another. They are quite independent in one sense but if you are familiar with the seasons you can see how each window relates to the one that comes before it and the one that follows after. There is a small stream of bluish water that begins to flow out of the creche in the Christmas window. That stream becomes a river in the baptism window next to it. I have always taken it to represent the ministry of Jesus in Galilee where water and growing crowds figure so predominantly. By the time you come to the Lent window that river is a mighty torrent. But within the frame of the Lent window it is as though that wave meets resistance and gets turned back on itself. You see that purple is added to the blue water and while the tide is rising it can’t burst through to the window of Holy Week in the next frame. As though the cross is a dam.

I like the way the Lent window conveys a message of resistance. It asks the key question of Lent which is how can someone who so faultlessly preached and practiced love ignite such incendiary opposition and condemnation in others? The stories, hymns, prayers, and observance of Lent seek to answer that question.   

If you would like to see a close up of the quilts and windows of Charleswood United they are on our website. You can view them here: https://charleswoodunited.org/our-church-home/

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

 

  • Did you know you can support this ministry by e-transfer, automatic withdrawal (PAR), and gifted securities, in addition to weekly or monthly cheques? For Offering Information please visit: https://charleswoodunited.org/support/  Thank you for your generous support.

 

  • Through the United Church of Canada’s membership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, an appeal for donations has been issued for the Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East. For more information and to donate please visit:  Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East Appeal

 

 

  • Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Mark 1:9-15

 

 

 

Michael Wilson / About Author
Michael’s involvement in the wider church has included ministry with children and youth, membership on the National Division of World Outreach, supervision of campus ministry, and the Ten Days for Global Justice National Committee. He has been blessed by the opportunity to represent the United Church of Canada in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Africa on different occasions. Michael has taught at the University of Winnipeg – Faculty of Theology and is past President of the Conference of Manitoba and North Western Ontario.
More posts by Michael Wilson