Thought for the week: Period of Lent is a period of prayer, study and reflection

The first Lent was for Jesus a time of affliction. Jesus was afflicted by man. "He was despised and rejected by men.” He was despised by the priests in the temple and by those who followed them. They would not accept his bona-fides that he was the Son of God. Ultimately, it was men who assaulted Him and nailed him to the Cross. It was his own followers who betrayed Him and denied him.

Small wonder that He was afflicted in the soul. "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." Is soul-sorrrow not our greatest affliction too? We know that our souls are the most spiritual, precious and immortal part of our nature.

None of us could admit to never having an afflicted soul. Those times when we have been harassed by doubts, depressed by fears, and sorrowful even unto death. Times when we have acknowledged that Jesus passed through similar but with a discipline which enables us to be uplifted and say in prayer to Him - "My heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

Jesus was afflicted in His body. In the gospels we read of his afflictions on the way to the cross and on it. Some people carry a daily cross of a diseased body, or distressing nervousness, or extreme debility in body or mind. This Lent I am just about coping with two dear friends who have been afflicted with dementia. I have been wondering and praying about what sort of healing and holiness can come their way and to their close loved ones.

I found it difficult to accept the view that affliction was a school for Jesus. That He had learned obedience by the things which He suffered. But I cannot escape from the fact that on the cross, in His death and resurrection, Jesus overcame all the forms of affliction physical, and mental which had sought Him out and found him.

And when affliction comes our way physically or mentally we need to embrace the Saviour’s hallowed discipline which enables us to transform in to experimental Christians whereby we an gaze upon the lowly Saviour and exclaim - “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you, and I repent in dust and ashes and I will conform more closely to you my afflicted, suffering and resurrected Lord”.