Rethinking Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is a time for confession, so here’s one for you: I confess that Ash Wednesday has never been one of my favorite Christian holidays. After all, who wants to be reminded of his sin and mortality? The words that are usually spoken when the ashes are placed on a worshiper’s forehead sound so grim: “From dust (or ashes) you have been made, and to dust (or ashes) you shall return.” 

When I recently read my father’s last two Ash Wednesday meditations, though, I learned that he had a surprisingly upbeat take on the meaning of the day. Here’s what he had to say that is causing me re-think my dour view of Ash Wednesday:

“Over and over again we read in the scriptures about Godly men and women who ‘repent in sackcloth and ashes.’ This is a sign of humility, not humiliation. That is, we need to realize that a realistic assessment of our worth in human terms depends on the grace of God and not our own doing. It is not that we are not worth something. The modern adage is true: ‘God doesn't make junk.’ To put it in scriptural terms, ‘God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.’ However, it is necessary to point out the underlying fact that God made it. The goodness is all derived goodness. We live in the glow of God’s reflected glory. God is love, and all love comes from God.

It is sin that has spoiled God’s creation. Sin twists and mars and makes ugly.  That is why we symbolize it with ashes on Ash Wednesday. The message of Ash Wednesday is negative in a positive sort of way. It says that only by taking a realistic and not inflated assessment of ourselves can we really make, by God’s grace, something worthwhile out of our lives.

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The answer that, hopefully, we will learn along this Lenten journey which is before us is that God saves us not by condemning us but by loving us. We listen to Jesus as he stands by the woman caught in the act of adultery. He says to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’ [See John 8:1-11] The effect of his words is not to push her further down into the dirt, but to lift her up and help her believe in herself and what the power of God working in her can make of her. This is God’s way with us.

Yes, we are dust, but it is Almighty God who made us out of dust and breathed his own breath, his own Spirit, into us. To negate a human being is to blaspheme God the Creator. The way to raise a creature of dust to a new and higher level is to affirm what God has done and is doing in that person. This opens the door even wider for more of God’s transforming activity in that life. Being negative and judgmental never works. It only begets negativity, hostility, and finally hopelessness. On the other hand, the positive approach, the affirming word, begets openness to you, openness to God, and a new attitude of hope.

What grabs me most, what changes me down to my core, is the realization that God loved me and valued me so highly that he sent his son to die for me. He did that all for me! What affirmation I feel when I realize how far God was willing to go to save me. Can I do any less than so love and affirm you?”

So as I go to worship this Ash Wednesday, it will be with a new focus: God is calling me, through these ashes, to acknowledge that my worth comes from him as my Creator, not from my own efforts -- which are only possible because of God, after all. And what am I worth as God's creation? I'm worth the greatest sacrifice ever made, and so are you.

From: "Ash Wednesday Meditation" (1988 & 1989)

My Elijah Moment

It’s been a while since I've posted on Bill’s Barrel, and there’s a reason why: I have been consumed by my work over the past month or so. I can’t think of another time in my practice of law when I've had more challenges, more frustrations, more difficult cases, facing me at once. One crisis is averted, and two more rise up to replace it. The strain of it all has left me feeling anxious, agitated and inadequate. It has robbed me of restful sleep. It has sapped me of my patience. It has made me question my abilities. This wave of stress crested one particularly tough morning when I left a desk covered with problems to dash to my appointment to give blood at the office blood drive. The Red Cross nurse who took my racing pulse frowned and asked, “Are you nervous about something?” Unable to donate, I walked away feeling utterly dejected.

Being swamped by your circumstances can leave you feeling isolated, alone, broken. That is certainly how the exhausted and defeated prophet Elijah felt when he was forced to flee into the wilderness because Queen Jezebel, who worshiped the false god Baal, had threatened his life. As my dad put it, “Here is a broken human being who God alone can bring back to fullness of life.”

In his sermon “Resources for Times of Stress,” Dad explained what God did to restore the despondent Elijah:

“The Lord sends an angel who ministers to his body with food and water, an indication that in this period of stress, as with most of us, Elijah had not been taking care of his body. … [O]ur bodies are closely entwined with our minds and spirits and affect our attitudes and thoughts.

After eating, Elijah lays down to sleep – to rest his body rather than to escape his despair. All of us need the peaceful rest that the angel allowed Elijah. God created us for a rhythm of work and rest, work and rest. We cannot be healthy without this rhythm.

Then the angel awakens Elijah [and] sends the physically stronger, but still spiritually broken prophet to Mount Horeb, the Mount of God. You know the story. The Lord wants to know why Elijah has come. Elijah tells his tale of woe – his former loyalty to God, the ineffectiveness of his work among the people, his frustration and loneliness. God knows that Elijah needs a new vision of Him. Elijah needs to know God’s presence and power again. A great and strong wind rends the mountain and breaks its rocks, but the Lord is not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord is not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord is not in the fire. Then after the fire comes a still, small voice. It is as if the Lord is saying to Elijah, “Stop. Be quiet. Cease all your anxious striving. You cannot tune in to me in all the confusion and vain busyness of your life. Take time. Be still. Give me an opening."

Again, Elijah tells his tale of woe to the Lord, ending with the familiar words, "I, even I only am left." Oh how that feeling haunts us. But God’s final words to Elijah point out several resources that are precious for every one of us who has become overwhelmed by feelings of frustration, failure and loneliness.

First, God gives the prophet some work to do. He is to be on his way to anoint a new king. God still has important work for him to do. Past failure does not mean future uselessness. It means we can bring a new sensitivity and a new positive humility to our next task because of our failures. Now we have a better handle on who we are and what we can rightfully expect of ourselves.

Next, the Lord tells Elijah to anoint Elisha to be the next prophet of Israel in his place. This is an encouragement to any man who feels like his life-long cause has gone up in smoke and that his years of labor are a total loss. Provided he cares about his cause and is not simply trying to build a monument to himself, it is heartening to know that God raises up others to continue and complement what we have done. I am a part of God’s plan, not the whole of it. This is an important truth to remember.

Finally, the Lord reminds Elijah that, contrary to his feeling that he was all alone in his fight against paganism, there are still 7,000 people in Israel who have remained faithful to the Lord and have not bowed down to the pagan god, Baal. Do you feel alone in your struggles and trials? Don’t believe it for a minute. This is one of the Tempter’s most successful means of deceiving and destroying us. "Isolate and conquer." This is why the Devil hates the church and tries so mightily to fracture and divide it. He knows that such a fellowship – where we discover that we are not alone and where we share our mutual woes and bear our mutual burdens – is his undoing. There is untold strength in having true Christian friends nearby – people you don’t have to pretend to and people who will at the same time offer you support. The Lord always provides at least a remnant with whom we can stand strong. The community God calls together (we call it the church) is his most powerful means of sustaining us when life threatens to engulf us.

And so the Lord brought Elijah through this period of frantic fear and stress. God offered him food and water and rest for his body. God offered him God’s own presence in the stillness. God gave him new tasks and therefore renewed purpose. God gave him other people to support and care for him. God’s resources for our times of stress have not changed. They are there for you now in your stress. They are God’s way of giving you back your own life.”

Thank you, Dad, for reminding me of the resources God has provided to help me through this rough patch.

From: "Resources for Times of Stress"

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-21