The season of Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. We will mark the season gathering at table to share a simple meal (6:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall), following which we'll share in a time of worship in the sanctuary.

The word "lent" means, simply, lengthening, and it refers to the lengthening days of early spring. That the church named a liturgical season "lent" surely reflects the roots of Christianity deep in the soil of the northern hemisphere, for the days are just as surely getting shorter in the global south.

Given that lengthening days are certainly not a universal experience for the church come February, March and April of each year, I prefer to think of Lent as a time for letting the roots of my own faith lengthen and grow deeper, and I invite you to just such a season this year.

Begin it tomorrow as the community gathers for what is, let's face it, the rather odd tradition of imposition of ashes. The palms branches from last year's Palm Sunday celebration will go up in smoke, and the ash, mixed with a bit of olive oil, forms a fine smeary mess.

As Yale Divinity School Professor Martha Moore-Keish notes, "Our culture does not know what to do with Ash Wednesday." As she notes, we do a good job with the parties before hand, but feasting is certainly simpler than fasting -- both to understand and to do.

Scripture doesn't help much with this confusion either, with Isaiah's mocking question -- "Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?" (chapter 58) -- a regular Lenten reading. Pile on Jesus's guidance -- "but when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others" (Matthew 5) -- and one might well ask, "why are we doing this Ash Wednesday stuff in the first place? Aren't we 'practicing our piety before others' just as Jesus warned against?"

As Professor Moore-Keish underscores, "The paradox of Ash Wednesday, and of Lent, is that we take on particular disciplines -- fasting, prayer, service -- in order to repent and conform ourselves more closely to the life and death of Christ, all the while recognizing that Christ has already come to us before we sought him. This is the paradox of the baptized life. We have been joined to Christ once, but we spend the rest of our lives trying to live into that union."

Ash Wednesday is just one more step along that journey. As with so many other steps on the journey of faith, it is good to take this step together, over a meal shared with other sojourners, and gathered together in worship.

Come and worship!

peace,

David