Church Seasons: Ash Wednesday

After Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and being in-between...we arrive at Ash Wednesday which marks the start of Lent.  I will talk directly about Lent in the next post...but it is good to center on the service that starts that 40 day journey to the cross.  Ash Wednesday centers around the phrase above, "From dust to come, to dust you shall return."  That does not sound very happy!  Where is the positive thinking?  Where is the uplifting thought?  Where is the inspiration?  No wonder people avoid this service...plus isn't this really Catholic?

A couple of thoughts.  First, on Ash Wednesday we do come face to face with our mortality.  Again, most of modern-day, Western thoughts wants to avoid this topic.  We are a death-denying culture.  We Botox and photo-shop our way to believing that we can live forever.  The fact is when you spend time around people in their 70s plus...most DON'T want to live forever.  I love serving a church that has wisdom of age to look at life, see the blessings and brokenness, and honestly say, "One day, I will not be here and it's okay."  But to say, "From dust to come and to dust you shall return," in our faith is not really morbid...it is an affirmation of our original blessedness.  In Genesis 2, God kneels prayerfully in the dirt, fashions and forms a being, and breathes life into that beings nostrils.  With each breath, we breathe in God's presence and life and energy.  We each breath, we breathe in the promise of original blessedness.  Ash Wednesday, viewed through this Scriptural lens, says to us, "We and star-dust and earth are connected in sacred ways."  Dirt and dust can be brought to new life through the breath of God.  

I pray that you will participate in an Ash Wednesday service in 2016.  As you enter into and prepare for Lent, this service is a holy threshold.  Gathering to set out on the journey with others reminds you that you are not alone.  The ritual of putting dust made from the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday parade on your forehead helps connect us to the circle of seasons/life.  It is a holy mark because it traces where the water at your baptism evaporated.  And both are true.  At your baptism, God made the holy promise to be in your life, sealed your heart as a beloved child.  At Ash Wednesday, we make a covenant with God to be honest that we don't always live our life by that truth.  We need this moment of confession and preparation for the long journey of Lent, to the cross, darkness of Friday, and the mystery of Easter.  

I pray we will not always leap from mountain top to mountain top in worship, that we will allow our worship of God to walk the valley...for as Psalm 23 says...there is more than a trace of God's grace there...it is a dwelling place for God's love.

Blessings ~