Feb. 17 Reflection: Finding Joy in Lent
Dear Holy Covenant Community,
On this Ash Wednesday, as we begin Lent together with a service at 7pm, read these words from our Psalm of the day, Psalm 51:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit.
It seems odd that our Psalm includes joy, for we don’t typically think of Lent as a joyous time. Lent is the time in the Christian year when we prepare for the death of Jesus on the cross. It’s a time of waiting-waiting in the wilderness. We spend 40 days in reflection and repentance. We focus on our sins and the sins of the community that crucified Jesus. Tonight we will receive ashes on our forehead, as a sign that we came from dust, and to dust we will return. Tonight we are reminded of our mortality, and we wear a mark of our mortality on our bodies, proclaiming our death to all who look upon us.
So why would we read this Psalm, one that speaks of joy and a willing spirit?
The Psalm begins, not with joy, but with vulnerability, saying: Have mercy on me, I know my transgressions are before me. Ash Wednesday, and all of Lent, is a time for us, with the psalmist, to admit our vulnerability before God. To acknowledge our need for mercy and grace
Admitting we’re vulnerable isn’t easy to do. We live in a society that tells us to always look outward, to be busy, to ignore our inner lives. We think that joy comes when we ignore our brokenness and focus on everything else. But when we ignore our inner most selves, our brokenness, we ignore the parts of us that help us recognize we need God. When we have the courage to be vulnerable, we will find joy. Not a shallow joy based on temporary pleasure, but the joy of growing closer to God, to ourselves, and to our neighbors.
Our Lenten theme this year is: Search Me, Know Me: Practicing Intimacy with God. This Ash Wednesday, join me in considering what you can take on for these 40 days of Lent that will help you create a clean heart and grow closer to God, and/or what you need to give up that is keeping you from God.
During Lent, be sure to read Holy Covenant’s blog each day written by members of our community who have covenanted not only to take on a spiritual discipline for 40 days, but to share it, in vulnerability and love, with all of us.
So in this season of wandering in the wilderness, the journey won’t be easy, but if we take it seriously, we will find joy in Lent: the joy of intimacy with God.
See you tonight at 7, and on Sunday.
Grace and peace, dust and ashes,
Kate
