Sometimes there is simply no margin for error.
That’s the deal with Corpus Christi’s request that we not introduce
peanuts into the facility: there is no margin for error. We have sinned, all
of us: the one who brought the peanut inside the chapel, and those who sat next
to that person and looked the other way. Such a little thing - who can believe
it could be such a big sin?
That’s why Ash Wednesday is so important. It marks the beginning of
Lent and the forty days we journey through the death of Christ to Easter. On
Ash Wednesday we ask God for the forgiveness promised when we were baptized.
We come to offer God the stuff that clutters our lives and our souls, the little
things we do or say, own or covet, that come between us and God. The service
revolves about the sign of the cross made with ash upon each of our foreheads,
and God’s words to Adam and Eve as they were evicted from the garden,
“remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
It’s often a little somber, this service, because the words and the ash
remind us that we are not God, that our lives are finite, that a day will come
when the lives we love so much will end. You wouldn’t think we need that
reminder, but we do. The arrogant among us need to be reminded that they will
not always be on top; the broken among us need to be reminded they will not
always be on the bottom. Those of us with no time for our families need to be
reminded that time runs out; those with time on their hands need to be reminded
that they await eternity. Those who are much loved need to be reminded to not
take love for granted; and those for whom love is a stranger need be reminded
that there is one who holds them ever in his arms.
So every year we take up ash. But always, always remember, it is to teach us
to hear the word of life, the word of God’s forgiveness. We mark in ash
the sign of the cross, to remind us that the very weapon of Jesus’ death
became in him the gate to eternal life. That ash was made from the palm fronds
we used Palm Sunday, just a week before the dawn of resurrection’s new
life.
Such a little thing is ash, but its mark leaves no margin for error.
Pastor Jim
Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing. Joel 2:12
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- February 2009
Copyright 2008 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.