Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. This evening, Christ UMC will be worshiping together with St. John's Anglican Church at 6:30 after a hunger meal of beans and rice (more on that another day). The Ash Wednesday service is a somber and solemn service designed to help us confront two realities that we would usually prefer to avoid: our mortality and our sinfulness.
These two realities are difficult for us to think about, let alone discuss. But they are two things that unite all of humanity. We will all die, and we all fail to live up to God's hopes and expectations for us. Fun thoughts, I know. But it is important for us to consider both of these, even if it is just once a year. When faced with each of them, and especially both of them together, we gain a greater understanding of God's grace. Both of them point to our great need for something divine beyond ourselves, because without it, we really do not have a reason for hope. Without God's grace, death is the end, our life ending in defeat. Without God's grace, we are lost in our trespasses, with no chance of overcoming. Without God's grace, our very existence is toil and futility.
But praise be to God that we are not left on our own, but that through Jesus Christ we have the promise of redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, regeneration, and even eternal life. In order to realize fully each of these, we must see our need for them that God alone can supply.
So, as we begin the Lenten season, my prayer is that we might become more aware of who we are in Jesus Christ and trust more fully in God's grace.
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