Invitation to a Holy Lent
Remember, you are dust.
Dear friends, Lent is upon us. So, let me make a confession. I have grown to really love Lent.
When I was growing up I didn't really have much sense of Lent, except that my Catholic friends didn't eat meat on Fridays, and our school served fish sticks.
But the further along in my earthly pilgrimage I've come, the more beautiful I find Lent.
Beautiful? Yes!
Lent invites us to begin again. Lent invites us to scrape all the barnacles off our ship, to wipe down the slate, to unburden ourselves of the heaviness, or all the unbearable lightness, of our lives. Lent begs for us to become more solid, more whole, more free.
What might happen if we were willing to imagine and experience Lent these days as a voice luring us away from distraction and busy-ness, drawing us into a life unencumbered by the clutter we have accumulated--the clutter of our dreams and expectations, the clutter of our fears and self-importance, the clutter of our guilt and shame? What if Lent is Jesus calling us all back to our own hearts, to God's own heart?
Lent is just that. Lent asks us to consider who we are and who we are meant to be. Lent is finding a treasure hidden in a field and selling all that we have to get that field. Lent is being a pearl merchant who searches and searches until we find that pearl that is worth everything that we are and everything that we have, worth giving up all of that. Lent is the summons to the fullness of life before God in Christ. Because, as we say on Ash Wednesday, we are dust and to dust we shall return. But dust of the most spectacular sort.
We are dust into which God breathed the Spirit. We are dust that lives. We are dust that has been made into a blessing, like the ashes imposed on our heads. We are to be the ash through whom the whole world is to be blessed. If we will be set aside all that blinds us to the glory of God that threatens to burst out of our own lives.
And how do we set all of this aside? We begin by being determined to see ourselves more clearly, through confession, self-examination, and prayer. We fast, cutting our consumption to the basics that we might remember we are more than that which we consume. We attend to the giving of alms, of seeking out those in need and doing what we are able to meet those needs. We meditate on the Scriptures, not because that is an interesting intellectual exercise, but because we believe that in some wonderful, unexpected mystery, they hold the Word of God for us. We pray. We pray for clarity of vision. We pray for clarity of purpose. We pray for purity of heart--to will one thing--that which God wills. We spend time to do all of these things, knowing that Jesus draws alongside us on this road and will reveal to us all that we had forgotten to look for, the blessing that we didn't think was possible, the riches of our humble living, the glory of our small lives. We do all of this knowing that God is merciful, and more--God longs for us, waits for us, whispers our name. If we will but turn and listen and take just one step.
Lent gives us permission to make of our lives what God wants to make of our lives.
Ash Wednesday is this coming Wednesday, February 18. At that service, it is my solemn duty and great joy to invite you to the observance of a holy Lent, with these words:
Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
You are invited. What will you make of your life this Lent. Will you hear? Will you listen? Will you take that one step that places you one stpep closer to God?
