Ash Wednesday

Season of Lent - Day 1

And so it begins.

     In more normal times, Christian worshippers all across the globe would gather in sacred spaces today to be reminded of a sober and somber truth.  We’re all sinners, and we’re all going to die.  That truth is usually brought home with the aid of smudged ashes in the shape of a cross on our foreheads.  

     Welcome to Ash Wednesday, a day when the good news might seem to be a bit more difficult to recognize.  

      The Season of Lent is a spiritual journey.  Actually its more than a journey.   It’s a spiritual pilgrimage to the cross.  Inspired by Jesus' wilderness temptations for forty days, these are days of penitence and preparation for the Church, days to reorient ourselves once more to living fully as the Easter people of God. 

 

      But before we breathe in the sweet aroma of Easter Lilies, we take up our crosses, dragging along our broken humanity, our sin and our shame and make spiritual pilgrimage to the cross.  For we know that before we can fully live there are things within us in need of dying.  

      Ash Wednesday begins for us an important inner conversation.  What is the sin we still cultivate in our hearts?  What prejudices still hold sway within us?  Is pride pushing us toward a fall?  Have there been wrongs perpetrated against us of which we refuse to let go?  Is there hate in our hearts?  Do we harbor bitterness?  What are the stumbling blocks we've placed in our spiritual pathways?  What unnecessary baggage are we carrying?  

       These are the kinds of questions Ash Wednesday invites us to ponder.  This is the type of inner reflection we're called to do while pivoting our lives toward Christ.   This is the inner work of the self-denying, cross-carrying, Jesus follower during Lent.  

       Today is Ash Wednesday.  The time has arrived.  There is much work to be done.  

       Come!  Let’s pilgrimage together.   

      

 Prayer - 

   O Christ who walked the way of the cross, 

   call me afresh and anew to follow you.  Reveal to me every obstacle in my way that prevents       

   me from knowing the deep spiritual intimacy with you for which my soul longs.  Teach me

   your way, make straight my path, save me from the sin that would bind and destroy me.

   Give me courage to heed your call to discipleship that I might truly deny myself,

   take up my cross and follow you.  In your holy name, Amen.