On guard

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5. 15-16

Lent invites us to examine our lives in order to check our attitudes and priorities and so to address inconsistencies. Scanning the state of society and of the world, there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. Young people see the world with fresh eyes and look forward to seizing their moment yet, with honourable exceptions like Greta Thunberg, few display the vision, let alone the appetite, for the kind of revolutionary engagement that would change the "game" we are in. This is how things appear on the surface...

Yet below the radar of public awareness, Christians throughout our society and around the world possess that vision for revolutionary change and are nourishing the appetite for its delivery - through faith in the Kingdom of God, which has come and is yet to come. Christians reject cynicism about the future because we believe that Jesus has redeemed all of life and is returning to complete the rescue in a future which is immeasurable better than the past and the present.

And even now, those who have put their trust in Jesus belong to that future. That is why we are exhorted to live as citizens of the Kingdom, come and coming, rather than of that which is perishing. This does not mean adopting a dismissive or uncaring attitude to those around us and to the environment we share. Rather we are to behave like rescuers among victims on a sinking ship, lovingly and courageously guiding them to safety.