Ash Wednesday

From Malcom Guite’s poem, “Ash Wednesday:”

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow,

Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross.

The forests of the world are burning now

And you make late repentance for the loss.

But all the trees of God would clap their hands

The very stones themselves would shout and sing

If you could covenant to love these lands

And recognise in Christ their Lord and king.

There is, I think, a sense in Lent that we are supposed to improve things, ourselves and our way we go about living.

That during these six weeks of reflection and repentance, we are supposed to give up or take on things that will make us better.

Perhaps we will give up chocolate as my daughter did several years ago and be rewarded with a 5 pound Hershey bar when Easter arrives.

Maybe we will eat fewer calories and when Easter comes we will have a bit too much ham as a recognition for all the good restraint we showed throughout the Lenten season.

Or, conversely, maybe we’ll take something on.

Perhaps we’ll start jogging again after having spent the last few years thinking about starting to jog again.

Or we’ll build up a routine of reading all of those books we’ve put aside for so long.

And then Easter will arrive and we might pause from all of the good things we’ve been doing as a well deserved break and we’ll start reading or running again soon.

Yet, we don’t always restart from the good we did during Lent and abstain from all of those things that our bad for us.

And we then might think, well, I am bad at Lent.

I am no good at this and why take on some new discipline or self-improvement regimen if I’m only going to fail.

And what if I responded that those new routines or disciplines are not exactly what Lent is about?

I mean, if we don’t get mad at ourselves for not fulfilling our Lenten “duties” they’re actually rather fun.

One of my fondest memories is watching Victoria pick up that five pound bar of chocolate in her yellow Easter dress.

She was much smaller then, just a little kid, and she needed two arms to hold it; it was half the size of her torso.

And the picture of her smiling and holding that Hershey bar is one of my favorites.

But again, what if I said the giving up and the taking on are not really what Lent should be all about.

No, Lent is not a self-improvement routine, it is a stripping away of the distractions that try to separate us from God.

It is a time of fasting, yes, but we do not fast from Snicker bars rather from sin.

It is a time of taking on new things, but not necessarily a long run; instead we take on things that bring us closer to God.

And how do we do that?

In Guite’s poem we hear that the forests of the world are burning and on this day we take on the outward manifestation of showing remorse for the loss of those lands to burning.

We wear the ashes of repentance on our forehead.

Yet repentance becomes something greater when we change the behaviors that cause the land to burn for if we recognize Christ as Lord and king we are then promising that we will stop its physical destruction forever.

Repenting for destruction is but a step towards reconciliation.

Changing the systems that cause destruction is very much necessary if we are to grow closer to God.

Still, the Rev. Guite is a poet.

His words now published are left to the world to interpret and my interpretation is a both/and.

This poem is both about the earth and ourselves.

Repentance for our sins is so very important for we are sinners.

We all sin, we are all imperfect, and that is okay, that is why we ask for forgiveness, why we repent of our sins, yet there is a bit more to all of this.

Imagine all of the angels clapping their hands and the saints of God’s array shouting and singing if only we could covenant to love ourselves and recognize Christ as our Lord and king.

If we love ourselves, if we recognize Christ as our Lord and king, then that which burns will be extinguished.

That which burns in the forests of the world and that which creates those scarring embers that rest upon our hearts will be extinguished through faith.

That which floods the lowlands, causing destruction and forces people from their homes and that which creates those weeping tears that threaten to overcome our sense of well-being will recede through faith.

The terrible storms that tear through small towns on the plains and places subject to hurricanes and those tempests that rob us from feelings of safety and empathy will calm through faith.

Because with faith that Jesus is Lord, we will perform those good works to cause such things to cease or become fewer at least.

And that is Lent; we have no choice but to reflect on how to become closer to God, how to allow God into our lives in such a way that we realize just how loved we are.

Imperfect as we may be, we are loved.

The Rev. Guite concludes his poem with these words:

He sees the slow destruction of those trees,

He weeps to see the ancient places burn,

And still you make what purchases you please,

And still to dust and ashes you return.

But Hope could rise from ashes even now

Beginning with this sign upon your brow.

It is fun to give things up for Lent.

I will give things up.

I will take things on.

And still, if we are to practice a holy Lent, if this is to be more than a season promising us a thinner waist and a twenty point increase in our IQs as advertised on late night TV, then let us also find our way closer to God.

Yes, there are burning hearts and flooding tears and tempests that touch us to our souls and those are things we address through the work gifted to us through faith.

Faith in God.

Faith in a better day.

Faith that though we sin, though we are imperfect, we are made sinless by Christ’s actions on Calvary; perfect by Christ’s perfect love.

We are dust and to dust we shall return.

And we are also born of God’s hope for all creation.

Hope rises from the ashes; hope placed upon your brow.

Amen.