I found myself at dusk on Ash Wednesday some three weeks ago driving through the Cotswolds on my way to preside at the Eucharist and to receive and to offer the imposition of ashes in one of our village churches.
It was a glorious evening, at the end of what had been a glorious day, one full of sunshine and of the early promise of spring and new life, with the colour of daffodils and snowdrops just beginning to emerge. Such a glorious day, yet one seemingly at odds with so much of the news with its reports of war, of sanctions and tariff, so much so that the words of Psalm 42 verse 14 came to mind ‘Why are thou so heavy, O my soul: and why art thou so disquiet within me’.
The service in which I shared was similarly glorious, simple, well attended, a community bound in love and service being invited again to the observance of a holy lent by prayer, acts of service, self-examination and fasting that we might learn to be God’s people once again. Quietly, simply in that service, we received in ash the sign of the cross on our foreheads, and again my thoughts turned to the gloriousness of the day and the heaviness of my soul, the ashes speaking so powerfully of my failure to follow the way of Christ and of the brokenness of our world, the brokenness of our nations and communities and lives. Turning again to the psalms I joined in crying out ‘from where will my help come’ a question answered by ‘my help comes from the Lord’ (Psalm 121 v 1 – 2). There was indeed the cold ash of the mess of our lives and our world, and yet that ash was placed on our foreheads in the sign of the cross. That ash was placed, where once, when we were baptised, the sign of the cross was made as the priest proclaimed, ‘Christ claims you as his own’. Christ loves you and calls you to life and will never abandon you. The ash was dark, yet its sign was not of despair or abandonment, but of the cross and of the promise of redemption, the promise of love that overcomes death and darkness.
As I drove home from that service, through the darkness of the night, I found that my heart was not quite so heavy, for like the snowdrops and the daffodils making their first appearance to herald spring, I had seen, I had experienced in the worship in which I had shared, the glimmer of God’s love in Jesus Christ shining through the ash in the cross I had received.
I should not be surprised of course. The very word ‘Lent’ itself comes from the old English ‘lentcen’ meaning the spring season. This is a season of hope, of encouragement of renewal, that brings us to the cross and opens the way to the dawning light of resurrection. So I find myself this Lent looking for these signs of hope, looking for God at work in our communities, our world, even in the mess, that I, that we, may indeed be renewed and that we may indeed learn to be God’s people once again, people of hope, of courage, who know that the love of God in Jesus Christ is for more powerful than any darkness.
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Good one Robert,
ATB,
Patrick