Penance

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is the first of the 40 day (not counting Sundays) season of Lent for many Christians. Many of us will sometime today go to a special worship service and have ashes smeared on our forehead in the shape of the cross. Lent is a time of preparing for Easter and the Easter Season, when we celebrate specifically the life-giving resurrection of Jesus. Lent is also a penitential season. It is a time when give up some creature comfort, when fasting is less the exception, and when we look to the example of Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan before beginning his ministry.

Is forty days of penance enough? Will giving up Cokes, or TV, or sweets, or meat, or Facebook really somehow absolve me of any sin? Can we work hard enough to fix ourselves somehow to be ready to meet Jesus, resurrected on Easter morning? Can any of us do enough to be pure enough to greet him when he comes triumphant at the end of time?

I wish I could work it out. Many of us wish we could be given a simply list of tasks that would fix us of our sin, our mistakes, our shortcomings. Several of my friends are working very hard to prove they have moved past the sinful-self of the past. But I know I cannot work hard enough to fix it all.

It is not easy to accept that Christ is more than willing to forgive simply because of who he is. God is constantly waiting and watching for us to repent (to turn back to God). It is the only part that really matters. All that God desires is for us to turn back and walk humbly with God. Our sin is not covered in our penance; our sin is covered in the cross of Jesus Christ.

Still, to all of you (and me) who are trying to find the perfect penance, if you find it let me know.

May you have a blessed Lent,
Andrew

Death

A little girl, 4 years old, stopped me this morning as I was coming into the church. "My doggy died," she said. I knelt down and she came over for a hug.

Death is a harsh taskmaster. We are all caught up in its clutch from the moment we are born. We participate in it. We are affected by it. As much as we do not like death, it is always there. The ultimate pink elephant in the room.

Lent, these 40 days before Easter, are a season of self-reflection. Many Christians begin the season with a smear of ashes on their face and the words are said, "From dust you have come. To the dust you will return." A morbid moment really.


Yeah, death. Cold. Harsh. Real.


And there behind death is Christ. Laughing at the vain attempts to keep us in submission.


"Daddy said, 'Our doggy has gone to heaven,'" she said.


"Yes. And someday you will get to see him again," I said. And I thought of my favorite dog, Danny Boy. And how someday, after I have become dust, I will sit in a swing under a live oak tree, watching the late summer sun set with Tammy by my side, Danny boy at my feet, and a baseball game playing on the radio.