Earth….Ashes…..Dust……Us

 

      “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  (Gen. 1:1)

 

      “….the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into

             his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  (Gen. 2:7)

 

      “….since from the ground you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you

             shall return.”   (Gen. 3:19)

 

      “When Jonah’s message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne,

             took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the

             dust.”    (Jonah 3:6)

 

      “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”   (Job 42:6)

 

      “O my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes; mourn with bitter wailing as

             for an only child…..”   (Jeremiah 6:26)

 

      “Woe to you Korazin!  Woe to you Bethsaida!  If the miracles that were

             performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would

             have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”   (Matt. 11:21)

 

            Ash Wednesday (February 17, 2010) is the Wednesday of the seventh week before Easter.  It is the first day of Lent when the Confession of Sins and the Imposition of Ashes serve as the “gathering rite” for the Ash Wednesday Service of Holy Communion.   As evidenced by the scripture passages above, the use of ashes, as a sign of repentance, is an ancient ritual, adopted from Jewish practice as an “external mark” of penitence.

 

            We began our Lenten journey this year, as always, reminded by the ashes that we are “people of the earth”…….created from the dust of the earth and given life by the breath of God.

 

            It is on Ash Wednesday that we are confronted with two very important reminders regarding our earthly existence:  (1) We are mortal and limited (human), not immortal and unlimited (divine)—thus the ashes smeared on our foreheads or on the back of our hands remind us that we “are dust and to dust we shall return.”  These are the same words spoken by God to Adam and Eve following their disobedience in the Garden of Eden, (Gen. 3:19) and words which certainly bring to mind other familiar words which we often hear at the graveside, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  (2) We are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, and during the season of Lent, we are reminded that through the gift of our Baptism, each day we “die to sin and rise to new life in Christ”—that is to say, the cleansing waters of Baptism wash away the “grime” of our sins and create in us clean hearts.  (On Ash Wednesday, ashes are a penitential substitute for water as a ‘reminder’ of our Baptism.)  Every day is a new day, “God’s “gift” of a clean slate upon which we are free to write as we choose.

 

            It is no accident that the season of Lent comes at the time of year when our days are beginning to lengthen….when the hours of daylight grow increasingly longer.  As nature and the natural world itself begin to re-awaken and burst forth with new life, so do we, in the community of faith, begin a journey that will lead us to spiritual rebirth and renewal as we, together, ponder the depths of the paschal mystery…..the journey from life through death to resurrected life.

 

            So here we are in the midst of another Lenten season, tired of winter’s snowy ‘silhouettes,’ and anxiously awaiting the return of springtime’s ‘full-bodied’ landscape.’  In nature, we truly have come full cycle—from the ‘new life’ we experienced last spring and summer, through the ‘harvest time’ of fall when all growing is completed and the cycle of decay begins, to the time in which we presently find ourselves, when nature moves into the cold, dark, barren days of winter, and we, once again, long for the ‘new life’ of spring this year!  Both the natural world and the Paschal mystery are truly in synch…..evidence of God’s magnificent handiwork.

 

            It is my hope and my prayer that this Lenten season we will spend time together at our Wednesday Soup Suppers and during the Bible Studies that will immediately follow.  Please look for details regarding both of these opportunities to gather together elsewhere in this month’s Newsletter.

 

            Let us make this Lenten season a time to focus on the things that really matter most…..gathering together, acknowledging our blessings, admitting our blunders, forgiving one another, encouraging one another, praying for one another, being kind to one another…….and returning to the Lord our God (in word and deed), who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love for each and every one of us.

 

                                                            Yours in Christ,

 

                                                             Pastor Carol