5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season and the day set aside for Christians to don ashes on their foreheads and hands as a sign of penitence. A colleague in ministry told her flock yesterday that we wear the ashes to remind ourselves that we are dying and ought to live like dying people.
As we begin the Lenten journey, we follow along Christ's journey to Jerusalem, and to the cross. None of us will go all the way; no one else will die and descend into the very depths of hell as He did. We thank God we do not have to! The Lenten experience is Christ's invitation to us to come and be near -- to stay awake as he prays in Gethsemane, and to come and stand close as he is crucified at Golgotha. Christ's place is on the cross; but we have a place also -- at the foot, as close as we might dare.
The nearer we come to the cross the nearer we come to the truth of our own fears, shortcomings, and mortality. The further we go the more exhausted and exposed we are. To stand there, within voice distance of Jesus as he remains silent before ridicule, refuses to be put out of his own misery, and even expresses forgiveness to those who are killing him reveals to us just how frail and deficient our faith really is. This is what it means to stand under conviction. We too are dying; and this is how we ought to live as dying people.
And yet, not only those who kill Jesus, but we too hear his words. "Father, forgive them." We hear these words because we have dared to follow after, and come close -- as close as we can, even within earshot. And when we hear Jesus say these words, we know they are not only for his enemies who hated him, but also for his friends who love him, but do not love him enough.
The journey begins. May we take up our cross and follow. And may we follow as far and faithfully as we can.
Scrap Metal Cross, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54353[retrieved February 10, 2016]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeortiz/307851438/.
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