Ash Wednesday
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one whose life gives us an example and model for how to live.
It’s Ash Wednesday today, a day where we consider our life in Christ, and also mortality as human beings. Blessings to you as we enter into this season of Lent.
It won’t be a surprise to you that mortality has already been on my mind recently! Over the past three months I have had to trust people with my health and my life, and I learned that as important as that is, it ain’t easy. I’m choosing to make it a part of my own practices during this Lenten season, and my hope is that it will make it richer and more meaningful.
Lent is a part of the Church Year that invites us to reflect and repent and prepare our hearts for the joy of the Easter miracle. It’s one of the fasting seasons, a time when we intentionally go without something as a way of reminding ourselves of our need for God. For these 40 non-Sundays (we’ll get to that) between now and Easter, we devote a little time and heart-space to looking at our lives and seeing where we can do better—where we can live more faithfully, more generously, more sacrificially.
We don’t naturally reflect and repent. Our lives move so quickly and busily that we rarely have the time or make the time. Sometimes we keep busy so we don’t have to look inward—that’s certainly my ongoing temptation. But Lent invites us to do what doesn’t come naturally. Lent calls us to take an honest look at our lives and see where the dead places are. This season is about pointing to the Resurrection, and so finding our dead places becomes an act of hope.
This year during Lent we’re encouraging you all to read a small devotional called Rise, by John Pavlovitz (there are copies available at the church). For today’s reading he says this about entering Lent with an eye on Easter:
When we step into these forty days as people of faith, we do so while having the end in mind, and so the pain we encounter in the gospels is always tempered by the knowledge of the glorious morning we know is coming. It will be a path woven through doubt, grief, fear, and hopelessness, but we know how it ends, and that helps. (p.5)
And so I invite you to make this Lenten season a meaningful one. We’re all going through something—some are feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of life and health and relationships. Whatever it is, take some time to look it square in the eye, remembering that we know how it ends—let that help a little.
On Sundays we get to shake off our fasts and celebrate the gospel story we hear on all the other Sundays. But for the other six days of these coming weeks, make Lent a real and important part of your life. Easter will be that much richer.
In peace on this Ash Wednesday,
Pastor John