Wednesday, February 26, 2020 – Ash Wednesday
“The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of his grace— a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies— and to comfort all who mourn, to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.” (Isaiah 61:3 -7, The Message Bible)


                There has always been a spiritual part of me which has believed that our Baptist tradition would be well served by the proper or appropriate observance of the whole Lenten season, beginning with Ash Wednesday.

                I always tried to have an Ash Wednesday service  in my churches and by and large, except for a faithful few, they were greeted with a rather tepid indifference. Few saw the purpose or understood the need for Lent or Ash Wednesday. Indeed, it is easy to ignore in Baptist circles, something for Anglicans or Catholics. Easter Resurrection is where it is at – who needs all this sombre, existential angst of repentance, sacrifice, and remorse? Of course, Lent is far more than that gloomy picture but there are those who do not see the relevance of the Lenten season.

                I can remember one of my senior men in my church in Ottawa complaining to me about the prayers of confession which I would bring into the Lenten Sunday worship services. He told me that these prayers weren’t necessary and had nothing to do with him; he didn’t feel the need to confess anything. Which begs the question about him…

                I enjoyed(?)  the challenge of inviting my folk into self-reflection, self-honesty, to renew their personal desire for their own spiritual quest, of personal exploration which would challenge them to know Christ more deeply and love God more eagerly.

                And sometimes, for sure, you have to sort through the ashes to get to the good stuff. I would invite people to write down some struggle, sin, challenge, habit, negative thought, etc. on a piece of paper. Sometimes, then we would burn these pieces of paper in a large vessel, symbolically turning their tough life-issues into ash in the light of God’s consuming Love and Grace. One time, we pinned the pieces of paper to an old rugged cross, recognizing that Jesus’ crucifixion plays a critical role in our forgiveness and experiencing God’s forgiveness.

                Lent can be cleansing, liberating, cathartic, purifying, uplifting and redemptive as we walk with Jesus through his Passion, his Death, his Burial and eventually his Resurrection. I don’t think one should skip right to Easter Sunday without the pilgrimage through all else which precedes it. Like the Phoenix which rises from its ashes, so we, too, rise with Christ from the Ashes of  our Lenten experiences into New Life. Lent reminds us whose we are and whose we are not.

                “That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.” (Romans 6: 12  - 14, The Message Bible)

                Lent leads us in the Way of Jesus so that sin can’t tell us how to live. The text from Isaiah is a celebration of ashes being turned into beauty and new life, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.

It also encapsulates the mission of Jesus whose death, cruel as it was, was the precursor to experiencing New Life, also. Sin and death, old Satan himself, never stood a chance!

“When we walk with the Lord/ In the Light of his word/ What a glory He sheds on our way!/ While we do his good will/ He abides with us still/ And with all who trust and obey.” (J.H. Sammis)

Dale