Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
A smudge of ashes on our foreheads sets us on another Lenten journey. We receive these ashes aware of our failings and regret for our sins of avarice, of selfishness, of bigotry.
But this day calls us to more than just regret and shame. Ash Wednesday calls us to repentance. It’s not enough to just wear this dark smudge as a sign that we know we’re human and that we often mess up.
The challenge of these ashes is: So, what are you going to do about it?
The theologian and pastor Richard Lischer writes that true repentance is not just about beating ourselves up for our failings. Repentance is the resolve to make things right:
“The ultimate goal of Lent is not contrition or meditation or suffering but reconciliation …A heart turned to God is prepared to turn toward others. Then, it is possible to forgive another human being – someone who has failed you, hated you, or betrayed you. It is possible, at least, to make something right with that person. You may not continue in close communion, but the sheer fact of what God has done [in the death and resurrection of his Son] means that a terrible breach has been repaired.”
[Adapted from Just Tell the Truth: A Call to Faith, Hope and Courage by Richard Lischer.]
Most of us have been brought up with the idea of “giving something up” for Lent, but the Gospel meaning of repentance calls us to make Lent a time for doing, for giving, for repairing, for reconciling. So let these ashes we take on today remind us of the difference between regret and reconciliation, the difference between the desired and the enduring, the difference between expectation and gratitude. Let’s accept these ashes resolving to repair what is broken and mend what is torn in our lives, to empty our lives of excess and artifice that we obsess about at the cost of experiencing God’s grace. Awareness and regret are the start, but the destination of these next 40 days is repentance – and that means transformative change in our relationships with God and with one another.
Perhaps we might find over these next six weeks that “acceptable time” to embrace this season’s call to repentance – repentance plus…
God of mercy and compassion, be with us on the journey to Easter that we begin today. Open our hearts to hear your call to holy sacrifice, that these days may be a time for the transformation of our perspectives and attitudes, a season for healing and restoration that leads to a lasting change of heart. Help us to find within ourselves your grace, that we may re-create our lives and our world from the ashes of division and selfishness to the peace and hope of Easter.
by Fr. John Frauenfelder
