Ash Wednesday Meditation
Throughout the 40 days of Lent, we'll be posting meditations, opportunities to gather, and programs to support as we grow and learn together.
Lent gets a bad rap. “What are you giving up?” That’s what people always ask. It makes it sound like God wants us to be deprived and miserable.
In Jesus, we have seen God. Jesus clearly did not want people to be deprived or miserable. In fact, Jesus was often criticized for eating too much, drinking too much, and paying far too little attention to the rules.
What Jesus cared about was love. “What is the greatest commandment?” they asked him. He said: to love God above all else and to love people no matter who they are.
Sometimes, though, it is hard to love because we are broken people surrounded by other broken people.
Lent is an annual opportunity to slow down and, in community, to face the reality of human brokenness so we might be more free to love: to love others, to love ourselves, to love God. We need not be afraid to face our brokenness. Broken or not, we are loved by God with an infinite love. If you doubt it, turn to the cross. That is how much God loves you.
During Lent, we stop, take a pause, and create a space where we can experience how broken we are and, wonder of wonders, how loved we are. We stop running around, tstop working so hard, stop surfing the web, stop eating and drinking as much... We just stop. Not because any of those things are bad, but because they are keeping us numbed out a bit and distracted from the Christian vocation to trust in God’s love and to love in return.
Lent is like date night. Date night requires that you give up something good just for a time: work, TV, email, the kids, you name it. Date night is a time to take a breath and remember again, as if for the first time, how much you love and are loved.
Lent is date night with God.
During Lent, our new priest, Mother Eva Suarez, and I will be sending you a very brief mediation each day, Monday to Saturday. (Sundays are not part of Lent.) Each one will be built upon the Gospel assigned for the Eucharist that day. Come to our noonday Eucharist and you will hear the reading in community!
Our goal will be to invite us all, including Mother Eva and me, to go on a sort of date night with God, with one another, and with ourselves. (Sometimes it’s good to take yourself of a date, too.) We hope that when Easter comes, we will all be able to say, “I remember you! I love you! I am so amazed and grateful that you love me.” God. Others. Ourselves.