Ash Wednesday
March 9, 2011
“Have a little faith in angels
You never know where they might be
Have a little faith in angels
And you might begin to see
You could have a little faith in you and me”
“Happy Lent.” Yes, that’s right, I said “Happy Lent.” Forty days, not counting Sundays until we celebrate Easter. I love the season of Lent. It is a time more about preparation than celebration. So, it is fitting to remind you and me to gather together “on your mark, get sent and grow.” I often refer to Lent as “Spring training for Christians.” It is a time to stretch those spiritual muscles. A season to take on something new and perhaps give up something that isn’t so good for one’s health, ( be it spiritual, mental or physical). The mark is made out of ashes (burned up Palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday). The mark is of the cross. It is made on our forehead as a reminder, a reality check of mortality. The pastor says, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” In other words “we are terminal.”
And since we know that our time is limited, then we are to be about things that are meaningful, authentic and life giving. That’s what it means to “get sent.” Lent is about the journey from ashes to alleluias. Lent is a season of holy motion and sanctified emotion. Lent is moving from death to new life and then ultimately life eternal.
This movement calls us to step out of our spiritual sleepiness and get growing.
Lent is the time of year where we get hints and promises of spring as plants and trees burst forth with green shoots of joy. We too, join this rejuvenation and blossom.
Peter invites us to “have a little faith in angels.” Each day during this holy season we will reflect on the words of Peter’s songs and also reflect on an angel designed by Delia Stewart. Today’s angel is named Harmony.
Lent is the time to work on Harmony. As Peter sings in the song by that title,
www.petermayer.com/songs/harmony
“it doesn't really matter if it's yours or if it's mine
It's the same amount of distance taken one step at a time”
We all have relationships and situations that lack harmony. Lent is a time to work on that.
My colleague, Pastor Ruth An will invite the worshippers at our services to the discipline of Lent--self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love.
It seems to me that today is the right time and place to increase one’s harmony and balance by taking seriously self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love.
I’ve included the entire “invitation to Lent” in case you want to keep it in a place that you can refer to over the next forty days.
INVITATION TO LENT
The assembly is seated. The presiding minister may invite the assembly into the discipline of Lent, using these or similar words.
Friends in Christ, today with the whole church we enter the time of remembering Jesus' passover from death to life, and our life in Christ is renewed.
We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and for God's mercy. We are created to experience joy in communion with God, to love one another, and to live in harmony with creation. But our sinful rebellion separates us from God, our neighbors, and creation, so that we do not enjoy the life our creator intended.
As disciples of Jesus, we are called to a discipline that contends against evil and resists whatever leads us away from love of God and neighbor. I invite you, therefore, to the discipline of Lent--self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love--strengthened by the gifts of word and sacrament. Let us continue our journey through these forty days to the great Three Days of Jesus' death and resurrection.
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship)
On Your Mark, Get Sent, Grow!
rtg
Faith in Angels
Open up that secret smile
The one you never let me see
Give me more than a moonlit while
That we've forgotten to believe
You say that love songs bring you down
Can't depend anything
But I've seen a silver bird leave the ground
Rising high on a borrowed wing
Chorus
Have a little faith in angels
You never know where they might be
Have a little faith in angels
And you might begin to see
You could have a little faith in you and me
Ask me how the sun crosses the sky
And the wind can bend any tree
And I'll ask you how a love can survive
If we don't believe what we can't see
Chorus
We all were born beneath a troubled sky
You've been waiting on the wings to carry you
But what you dream you to got to live
The love you want you got to give
Open up that secret smile
Filled with pieces of a dream
Let's take a chance on a moonlit while
While there's still time to believe
By Roger Guth & Peter Mayer
SO pleased to be receiving the H2o Devotions again !! Thank you Pastor Ron - because it really helps me on the Walk. I especially like it when you include some of the liturgical worship that you do, coming from a non-liturgical background. Blessings!
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