Wisdom Wednesday: Ash Wednesday

Joe
Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. With me today is my partner in ministry, Andrew Labar Dietz Peakland’s Associate minister of Discipleship.  Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Season of Lent, and we gather with Christians all over the world on this day, and we do so as Christians have gathered for centuries to receive a gritty reminder.  Today we remember that we are mortal, that we will die.  We remember our mortality today, so that at the end of this season of Lent, we may truly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and embrace our new lives in Christ and our resurrected lives with Christ in the life to come.  In order to participate for you watching at home, you’ll need a bit of dirt or ash from the from the fireplace. In just a moment you’ll place a mark on your forehead.

Andrew:
We remember our mortality by receiving a mark of ashes on our foreheads and hearing the words, Remember thou art dust, and to dust thou wilt return.  Repent and believe the Gospel.  That last part "repent and believe the Gospel" is just as important as the first.  For in order to truly embrace our new lives in Christ, we must do the demanding work of self-examination and correction in this season of Lent.  Our first step together in that self-examination is with prayer.  

Let us pray:
God, create in us clean hearts and renew your spirit within us.
Restore unto us the joy of your salvation.
Be willing, O God, to keep us in your tender care.
Deliver us, Lord, and free us from sin.
Help us, Holy One, to use our lives as a testament to your transformational power.
Allow your Holy Spirit to redirect us when we begin to wallow back to sin.
This Ash Wednesday we take hold of your promise:
Renew us, Lord: a new walk, a new talk, a new mind, a new heart, a new life.
Thank you for the promise that we can truly be made new again.



AN INVITATION TO THE OBSERVANCE OF LENTEN DISCIPLINES

Joe:
Beloved in Christ: the early Christians observed with great devotion the days of the Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration there should be a forty-day season of spiritual preparation. During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.



Andrew
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to participation in the life of the Church. In this way, the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.


Joe
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to observe a holy Lent: We do this through self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word. To make a right beginning of repentance and as a mark of our mortal nature, we receive these ashes.


THANKSGIVING OVER THE ASHES
IMPOSITION OF THE ASHES
Remember thou art dust, and to dust thou wilt return
Repent and believe the Gospel.        


Joe:
And now you, take a bit of the ash or dirt, mark your head.
Remember that thou are dust, and to dust thou wilt return.
Repent and believe the Gospel.
Amen.


Peakland offers two ways of strengthening our faith during the season of Lent.
As a congregation, we’ll be reading and discussing this book. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. We’ll have in-person discussion groups during the week and I’ll offer my insights each Wednesday here online.

As we have done in year’s past, Peakland will collect a Lenten financial offering to benefit 7 helping agencies here in town. Look for more details on those ministries coming soon.

We pray you have a blessed Lenten season.