Ash Wednesday

So I'm leading a large part of our Ash Wednesday service this evening, and I wanted it to be more of an experiential prayer piece. I'm handing out little squares of burlap (cut from a feed sack) and asking the people to smell it, hold it, rub it's rough texture against their skin. I'm tying it to the Old Testament idea of "sackcloth and ashes," but the real empahsis is on repentance.

I started thinking about how people use Lent to give up chocolate, TV or coffee. I know the idea is to sacrifice throughout the season, but I think we've made it a contest or a bit of a joke by making it so trivial. In my former church, the pastor and I used to joke that the church does "death and dying" really well, but we don't do "celebration and joy" well at all. As I think about it, we focus so much on the death of Christ, but what about the journey to get there?

Lent was originally a season of reflection and repentance as new converts prepared for their baptism on Easter Sunday. The symbolism was walking a journey with Christ and turning away from the things that harm your soul. In fact, "repent" means "to turn away." It's not the simple "I'm sorry, forgive me" concept that churches often present. If Lent is the season of reflection and turning away from what harms the soul, then our kick-off of the season should point the way.

So, I designed a reflection around this burlap and repentance. The key is for each person to have time to reflect on the things that they need to turn away from this season. Perhaps they need to turn away from pride and seek reconciliation with someone. Maybe it's to turn away from anger and seek healing or to turn away from self-righteousness and seek forgiveness. It could be a need to turn away from the comfortable and take steps to do what God is calling them to do. It could be a need to turn away from noise or busyness and to seek time in silence and solitude so they can hear God speak to them. These are the things I am posing to my fellow travelers this evening. This is the challenge for this season of Lent. I'm hoping that they will be encouraged to turn away from whatever is harming their souls and to turn towards Jesus, who offers beauty instead of ashes.