Some Thoughts For Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, which is a movable forty day fast which correlates to the preeminent season of Easter, the fifty day feast.

So, why the ashes and why the fasting? The ashes are a sign of mourning and repentance. We humans are destined to death. Everything in our short life here on earth is leading to the inevitable time when our bodies give out. No matter how well we eat, how much we exercise or meditate, we are dying. Our 21st century western society would have us deny this fact. Simply observing various health campaigns, the emphasis on youth culture, the prevalence of plastic surgery and anti aging creams and lotions,  and the relegation of the elderly into institutions, it becomes clear that ours is a society in deep denial and avoidance of this very fact.

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality, or our finiteness and of what has lead us to this inevitable destination. It places in the forefront, that it is sin which leads to death and is a call to repentance and in fact to new life. As the ashes are placed on our foreheads, we will be reminded that from dust we have come and to dust we will return. It is to shake us out of our daydream into reality. We wear the ashes as a reminder of our complicity with death and a sign of our repentance for that complicity. Job 42:3-6, Jeremiah 6:26, Daniel 9:3

The fasting during Lent reminds us of where our true desire lies and reorients our thoughts to where our true hunger is fulfilled, in God. To reorient is to repent, to accept God's forgiveness and to accept the Christ life that now lives within us.

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble - because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

We all are dying. The voluntary death to self leads to life. The grasping of life leads to death. Ash Wednesday and Lent makes us more aware of this choice and aids in orienting our lives to the only one who can give life.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:25

Ash Wednesday

Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent in the church calendar, the season for repentance and reflection. The older I get, the more I am grateful for this day. What if there were no opportunity to repent and no chance of grace? Much of the world seems happy enough to live without it, but I can't, wretched sinner that I am.

I was thinking of what I could write about this day and remembered a quote from Bono that really captures the goodness of repentance and the blessedness of grace. He was interviewed by Michka Assayas for a book after the Madrid train bombings. Here is part of that interview.

Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Kyrie eleison

Ash Wednesday

I was not raised in a liturgical tradition, so the idea of church seasons was new to me as an adult. While those raised in such a tradition may take it for granted or even tire of it, I find it refreshing and helpful in keeping the whole of Christian life in proper perspective and balance. As the season of Lent is upon us, I look forward to this time of discipline and intentionality. It is sort of like recalibrating and becoming resensitised to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Below is a video with a short explanation of Ash Wednesday and Lent. I particularly like the inclusion of the Orthodox tradition of Forgiveness Sunday.

Pax.