April 2025
Lent.
The season has traditionally been used for personal reflection and spiritual disciplines. In some traditions, some thing or activity that is part of your life was set aside for the season, and in its place you were to spend that time or effort in focused time with God or God's Word.
I would like to suggest that for the conclusion of the season of Lent, you spend that time and effort in random acts of kindness - without fanfare, for then the fanfare is your reward. Look for places where you can do something helpful where people don't know you did it, and offer a short prayer for the one you are helping. If that seems like something you wouldn't feel like doing, think about the people you know who are having a bad time, a difficult change in their lives, and spend dedicated time in prayer for them.
In this way, we can have our own Mount of Transfiguration moment, and perhaps it will help us to reflect, as Peter, James and John did following their own time on the Mount with Jesus, considering their own foibles and weaknesses. That is a worthy activity for us at any time, but can be particularly helpful during this season leading to Jesus' last trip to Jerusalem.
I may surprise you some Sundays by offering a monologue based on a character in one of the scripture lessons. I've done this in the past and found it helpful to bring some humanity into one dimensional characters in the Bible stories we share. I would encourage you to plan to attend the special services we offer during this season in cooperation with the Yorkville United Methodist Church and their pastor, the Rev. Jim Droste. We offer a Maundy Thursday modified seder (Passover) meal with an embedded service at Yorkville United Methodist Church and a Good Friday noontime service at the Union Grove Congregational UCC. We may, so keep watching, decide to offer an Easter Sunrise Service.
But throughout, please remember Easter, in effect, come with each day we rise, each loving action we take. Jesus walks in and through us each day in each place we walk, live and work. And on Easter Sunday, join us as we joyfully cry out "Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!"
-Rev. Howard Hunt
