In the beginning of the Bible is a strange story that goes: "Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being."

A few verses later it says: "then he took one of the man's ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman...."
We laugh at this ancient story with its quaint image of God as a child making figurines in the mud. We laugh, but the joke is on us, for in spite of our proud protesting, the Bible is right, we are made of dirt and water, and after our allotted time we return to the earth from which we came.

For all those who imagine they are self-made this can only be a horror story, or as Macbeth puts it as his end approaches:  "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

For all those who know they have been grasped by God in Christ, this is a love story that ends not in dissolution, but in New Creation and a life beyond imagining.

On Ash Wednesday we offer our foreheads to the mark of approaching death, as a sign of our faith in the faithfulness of God, who in baptism sealed us by the Holy Spirit and marked us as Christ's own forever.  Ash Wednesday is the doorway into the Easter Mystery by which we participate in Christ's death and resurrection, God's gift to shattered creatures of clay.

We will celebrate Ash Wednesday at 7:30 AM and Noon in our chapel and at 7:00 PM at Trinity Lutheran Church, 170 Old Westford Road, where I will be preaching and our choir will be singing.
Peace in Christ,
Bill

P.S. I also hope all children and adults will join us for the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper in the parish hall the night before. I loved it as a kid at Saint Anne's, Atlanta, just as my kids loved it at Saint Peter's, Washington, N.C.
 
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