O God of eternal love, we are here again needing your amazing grace. We’re half way through our Lenten journey, and to be honest some of us have lost our way. The distractions of life keep pulling us off track. There are taxes to do, gardens to prepare, and our houses, offices, and even our lives need a good spring cleaning.
Spring break isn’t long enough, and quite frankly we often come back from vacations more tired than when we left. Those school assignments or work deadlines are still lurking on our lap tops and in the back of our minds. Instead of focusing on what you would have us do for others we get turned in on our own fears and doubts about the future—concerns about our own health or the well-being of our loved ones.
Gracious Holy One, we know you have told us over and over again to put our trust in you and not in things that thieves or natural disasters can take from us. But we still have to buy expensive food and watch our retirement accounts shrivel up. Those fears are real, God. And they make it hard to trust in the future.
So we’re here seeking hope and assurance. We need forgiveness for the times we have strayed from the narrow path that leads to salvation and for the times when we self-righteously look down our noses at others who are just as lost as we are. Speak to us again your words of grace that tell us and show us that we can never wander so far that you can’t find us, for you are with us and your spirit is right within our hearts.
Remind us once more, O Holy One, that you are not the judgmental, angry God many of us grew up learning about, but you are the Good Shepherd, the mother hen, the eagle parents nurturing their young. You love us unconditionally forever. There’s no fine print, no preexisting conditions in the new covenant we have with you that was signed and sealed in Jesus’ own blood on Calvary’s cross.
So with grateful hearts we the people of your kindom reaffirm our trust and offer again the prayer Christ taught us to pray …
I was not in the mood for Lent this year. With everything going on in the world and my own ever-nearing 80th birthday in just 19 months the last thing I wanted to hear was “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I already felt lost in the wilderness and didn’t think I needed to add any more of lostness to my weary soul.
But even good habits die hard and this annual tradition kept nagging at me; so my wife and I decided to attend our church’s Ash Wednesday service on line, and I’m very glad we did. On-line worship is not usually the best way to worship for me, but I am grateful for that option when I need it. The service at Northwest UMC on Ash Wednesday was an exception to the rule for both Diana and me. It was a very well done service that was contemplative, and being at our kitchen table with only candle light to illumine the room was ideal for that particular kind of worship.
Our church had provided packets for the service that included ashes and a small piece of clay. At one point in the service, after hearing the traditional Scriptures for Ash Wednesday read, we were asked to take the clay and form it into something symbolic that would have meaning for us during the 40 day journey of Lent.
We were give time to pray about that assignment while soft guitar music played. Thanks to the wisdom of several authors I’ve been reading in the chaotic days since January 20 (Richard Rohr, Kate Bowler, Diana Butler Bass, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Brian McLaren, and Sarah Bessey) my mind was led to think about the one constant and trustworthy thing in any time of crisis, namely God’s eternal love.
So I formed my clay into the symbol for infinity which always looks like an 8 lying down to me. Then as I had time to ponder that a little longer it came to me that what I was thinking and feeling was not just a mysterious concept of never-ending infinity or even in Buzz Lightyear’s famous quote “To infinity and Beyond.”
What I was trying to capture in clay was something quite tangible and real – Love. I’ve felt that love more powerfully than ever before through my family and friends who rallied around me during my health crises in the last 8 months. I discovered that my village is a lot bigger and deeper than I realized before. The ministry of presence took on a more beautiful meaning for me in the physical and spiritual companionship that surrounded me and got me through a wilderness journey of my own.
So I decided to shape one end of my clay infinity symbol into a heart (pictured above), and it is still sitting on the kitchen table to remind me several times a day that St. Paul got it right in I Corinthians 13:7-10 when he wrote: ” Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.”
That worship experience was a much needed reminder for me of that eternal love which is the constant, solid ground under our feet even when the foundations of everything we thought we could trust are shaking like an earthquake, to borrow a phrase from the great theologian Paul Tillich. The Ash Wednesday service I didn’t think I wanted helped me to surrender a lot of the anger and frustration I’ve been dealing with about our current political crisis, and I am very grateful.
Today I put that picture of my clay symbol on my watch and phone as wallpaper to be an even more frequent reminder for me the power of eternal love.
A funny thing happened after that Ash Wednesday service. When my wife Diana looked at my art work she said, “I like your fish.” After I explained to her what I intended my symbol to be I realized that the fish is also a great symbol for eternal love. I was also reminded that art is also mysterious and can mean different things to different people at different times.
The fish symbol has been a Christian symbol for 2000 years because the early Christians used it as a secret code to identify themselves as Jesus followers to one another in a way that they hoped would not be recognized by their Roman persecutors. The origin of the symbol came from the Greek word for fish, Ichthus. It was and still is used because the letters of the word ichthus are the first letters of the Greek phrase “Iēsous Christos theou hy ios sōtēr”, which translates to “Jesus Christ Son of God Savior”.
So whether I see a fish or an infinity symbol when I see this piece of clay doesn’t matter. They both speak to me of God’s eternal love that will sustain me through these 40 days of Lent and through whatever the future holds until I return to dust and beyond. I hope it might do the same for you.
The decorations are up, the stockings are hung with care, and children are bursting with anticipation. The nativity scene is set in its special place, but the manger is still empty. The nursery is stocked by Babies R Us, but the guest of honor has not yet arrived. Like expectant parents we can’t wait to cuddle the tiny new life in our arms. We are so close we can feel the baby kicking in the womb, and we are filled with a rich mixture of joy and anxiety. As we wait, let’s remember how different Jesus’ arrival was from birth today, and yet how similar. Parenting is a universal gift of love. In a birthing suite or a stable, to hear that first cry melts our hearts with instant love. Birth is worth every second of the long wait. And so today we light the 4th Advent candle, a light no darkness can extinguish, the candle of Love.
Prayer:
O God, our heavenly parent, we are so close we can see the lights of Bethlehem reflecting on icy roads. Forgive us when we get distracted from the destination of our Advent journey. With trees and houses and malls ablaze with Christmas decorations, it’s easy to get lost on our way to the manger. Disturbing news from inhumane places like Aleppo threaten to extinguish our hope for humankind. Winter storms cancel much needed Sabbath worship services. Remind us again O God that even in the shortest, darkest of days the light of the world awaits us in Bethlehem’s modest manger, and that light is constant and unfailing. It is the light of love; a love that makes room for a mother in labor in a strange place; a love that hears angels sing of peace on earth and joy to the world. As the lights from on the Advent wreath grow brighter, help us welcome the gift of love into our hearts; so we can be midwives in a dark and weary world, helping give birth to the miracle of love. In the name of the one who is Love in human form we pray. Amen.
Peacefully Harsh 