Branches to Ashes
Ash Wednesday Meditation
March 2, 2022
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Lent begins tonight. Technically, the word Lent means “springtime.” It starts on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter Sunday. Church tradition designates these weeks for preparation, especially in ways that honor Jesus, tempted for 40 days in the wilderness. Repentance and renewal of faith are common themes over the centuries as people give something up to remind them of the struggle Jesus went through in his Passion on the cross. It’s also a time to take on extra things which build our spiritual muscle, such as additional worship services, giving money to needy causes, doing service work, or learning a spiritual discipline. Lent helps us prepare for Easter’s joy. In the Northern Hemisphere, this coincides with spring.
Lent also invites us to take a large step back so we can broaden our view and gaze into the cosmos. As Creatures, we worship the Creator, and are humbled by the scale and unitive qualities of Christ’s creative presence. Like an astronaut looking at the earth from space, world peace takes on a new perspective, and the natural systems of the planet held in the vast spaciousness of the universe, gain relevance in ways that are life changing.
Last Sunday I mentioned the light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth, so when we feel the warmth, we are going back in time. I also saw a photo from Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope that shows two galaxies, and they estimate that they have moved through each other. In the process of coming together and moving through one another, lots of new stars are now forming. But what kind of time scale this cosmic creativity occurs on is too much for our chronology to conceptualize. Lent in a cosmic way helps us remember that we are participants in life that is not limited by our own perceptions or perspectives.
At the Gates of Freedom exhibit in Wittenberg Germany, marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, a display shares a quote by Steven Vincent Benet, as he writes in 1942, during a World War and violence demeaning humanity and the larger creation. He offers this prayer to the United Nations, “Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color, or theory. Grant us that courage and foresight to begin this task today so that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of humankind. Amen.”
(‘United Nations’ prayer by US author Stephen Vincent Benet, 1942; on display in Wittenberg, Germany in 2017 in the Gates of Freedom Reformation Exhibit)
Today as a new Lenten Season begins, millions of people participate in the sign of mortality by marks of ashes. But it’s something more than that; it’s a sign of connection to all there is, and a sign of trust that God’s creative power continues to work in and through Christ, as all things are in Christ and Christ is in all things. Something within us knows that, ultimately, we are participants in a mystery much larger than our minds and mental structure can comprehend. Symbols, rituals, these help us stay honest enough to not only claim our finite, limited existence, but a deeper hope in a participatory love that holds us. With each breath, we are invited to find our center in Christ and claim the energy of life itself as creation groans and grows and evolves, deeper into glory as God proclaims a divine YES!
As we mark ourselves with ashes tonight, we bring our personal lives, whatever it is we’re facing in our context, and like a bookmark claiming a certain page, we rest within a larger story of cosmic significance. With ashes marked in the shape of the cross, we Remember We Are Stardust, and to Stardust We Shall Return. Blessings to you on this Lenten journey to Easter and beyond. Amen.