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Good morning. For many Christians, today is the second day of Lent.

Two days into this season of penitence and self-denial can feel like the second of January – the good intentions of New Year’s Resolutions already crumbling as old habits die hard, and our will power is found to be nothing like as strong as we’d hoped.

But trying to do better and failing, is central to the learning process of Lent. Christian faith teaches that At the heart of our preparations to stand once again at the foot of the cross on Good Friday, is our need to recognise our own weaknesses and shortcomings – so that we can offer them for Christ’s forgiveness, redemption, and healing.

We might say that the key question we are exploring through these forty days is to fathom the particular depths and darkness with which we are wrestling here and now. Lent invites us to ask what aspects of our 2017 life most need Christ’s redemptive transformation; and to acknowledge where our deepest pains lie. We have six weeks, in which to work at getting a handle on life’s sharpest struggles. 

Trying, and failing – and keeping on risking failure, by keeping on trying – will show us what we offer before Christ on his cross.

As the writer C S Lewis put it, Christians are not those who never go wrong, but those who are able to repent, and pick themselves up, and begin over again after each stumble, with Jesus Christ alongside to help us.

And for those observing Lent, It’s heartening to remember we’re all in this together – St Paul urged the Thessalonian Christians ‘encourage one another, and build each other up.’

So we shouldn’t be discouraged if we slip up in Lent. We might say what matters most is to give up giving up!

Lord Jesus Christ, walk with us on our Lenten journey, and when we stumble, give us courage to get up and keep going. Amen