Ash Wednesday, & Lent Offerings 2024
"I turned to the Lord God, to seek help, in prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes."
Daniel 9:3
Lent is not as fun as Advent. You could, and perhaps Fr Lee would, argue that I don’t truly embody the spirit of Advent, but rather treat it as an extension of Christmas. There may be some truth in that, but I’m learning!
The church calendar was not big in the tradition I grew up in, the landmarks were observed, but what happened around them was left to the individual. Perhaps we might be encouraged to “give something up for Lent”, but there was little discipleship to explore why. There was certainly no ashing, burning the palm crosses from the year before to mark our foreheads, an outward symbol of the inward journey of penitence ahead. (Oh no. The Anglicanism has truly crept into my spiritual expression.) One notable year I gave up both chocolate and caffeine: it was a bumpy ride.
This year, given that it feels as if we’ve only just celebrated the birth of Jesus, it seems all too soon to be considering his, and indeed our own, mortality. I also believe it is an especially challenging season for those of us who have been told for as long as we can remember that we are inherently more sinful than anyone else, just by the nature of our being. Our sins may not be ranked by God, but they’re certainly not equal to our fellow Christians.
It is an ugly word to describe an ugly blight on the beauty of creation. Sin. A word that attempts to convey all that exists in the world that required redemption so profound that the Divine had to became incarnate, to suffer, and to die. Of course, one word cannot express the rift between Creator and creation, and in our attempts to do so, we have so often projected onto others a greater sense of this blight. Women, anyone who isn’t white, those with disabilities, those with mental ill-health, and of course, LGBT+ people. Yes man has sinned, but you can always find someone else whose sin is greater – or so the status quo has become.
Penitence, therefore, and reflecting on that which keeps us from the fullness of God, can often leave our mouths feeling as if they have been ashed, not our foreheads. If we have been led to believe that it is our gender or our sexuality that is sinful, but then we have journeyed, often painfully, to a fullness in it, the concept of sin can seem brutal, antiquated even.
Sin is a hard word to swallow in our world today, an element of our humanity that is beyond our own ability to fix, cure, or otherwise remedy. We can certainly pursue Godliness, yet the redemption of that which has kept us separate from God is indeed God’s business only. Sure, I can try to give up coffee again for Lent this year (send help), an act of fasting to give over to God, but my certainty in a restoration of humanity and creation to a fullness with God does not come from my behaviour, it is only of God.
My encouragement to you then, this Lent, if the language of sin causes you to remember troubling times past or present, or indeed if you are in the place where accepting that there are things beyond the scope of the powers of humanity (or sheer will and stubbornness), is to use the coming weeks to gently commune with God again. Set aside time to pray, to read, to reflect, nurture a gentle inquisitiveness in your heart that is not there to expose your flaws, perceived or real, but rather to encourage a conversation with the God that, despite everything, did indeed go to the cross for the restoration of us all. Perhaps today, and throughout Lent, you may come to know these words from the Gospel of Luke as truth:
“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us”.
Luke Dowding
CEO
Throughout Lent, our times of Rhythm prayer on Thursday evenings will use the example of LGBT+ saints to guide our prayers and reflections. You can find out how to join this time here: https://onebodyonefaith.org.uk/rhythm/.
We are also signposting the fantastic resource from the Chaplaincy Team at King’s College London, in it you’ll find a reflection for each day of Lent: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/chaplaincy/assets/pdf/kcl-chaplaincy-lent-booklet-2024.pdf. For further information about the KCL Chaplaincy, check out their website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/chaplaincy.
Finally, if you are a member of OneBodyOneFaith, all our previous Lent materials can be found in the member’s section of our website. If you are not yet a member, but would like to find out more, you can do so here: https://onebodyonefaith.org.uk/join/, or by emailing hello@onebodyonefaith.org.uk.
Picture thumbnail courtesy of Adrien Olichon via Unsplash.
