Archive for the ‘Ash Wednesday’ Category

Returning to Lent

February 17th, 2010

The past few years I have found much encouragement and growth in following the Christian calendar and keeping my thoughts and spiritual journey somewhat in line with the church seasons. The cyclical nature of the seasons, Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Ordinary Time, have drawn me deeper and deeper into my understanding of and relationship to the Triune God. But, during the past year of pregnancy and the early months of motherhood, I found myself in a season of my own and unable to fully relate to or participate in the church seasons. In fact I didn’t even have a single thought about Advent this year until it was over – really I didn’t have a single thought about much of anything accept my dear difficult child.

Today I woke up to realize that it is Ash Wednesday, and I felt suddenly like I need Lent this year. Need Lent like I have never needed it before. Lent is when we remember the time the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. Lately, I feel like I am wandering unknown territory, my own desert. Lent is also when we remember Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Lately, I feel tempted. I feel tempted to ignore God and focus solely on my immediate physical needs. I feel tempted to escapism instead of being present with where I am and what my life looks like at the moment. I feel tempted to despair and to feel like my life has no broader purpose or vision amidst the mundane of peek-a-boo and dirty dishes.

Lent is also a time of repentance and purification during which we prepare again to celebrate and remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I remember learning that for a time in the early church Easter was the only time that they baptized new believers and Lent was for these new believers a time of preparation for baptism. Lent was a time of preparing to enter into the family of God. Eventually “older” believers began to also celebrate Lent as a time to renew their faith and commitment to the resurrection life that God offers. This year I feel this subtle historical significance of Lent. I need this. I need to come to God anew. I need a fresh start with Jesus.

Thanks to Christine Sine I recently read this quote from Joan Chittister’s book The Liturgical Year and it really spoke to me about why I need to participate in Lent yet again:

Lent is not a ritual.  It is time given to think seriously about who Jesus is for us, to renew our faith from the inside out.  It is the moment when, as the baptismal waters flow on every Easter Vigil altar, we return to the baptismal font of the heart to say yes once more to the call of Jesus to the disciples, “Come and see” (John 1:39)  It is the act of beginning our spiritual life all over again refreshed and reoriented.  (111)

I want to begin my “spiritual life all over again refreshed and reoriented.” And so this Ash Wednesday I bow my head and heart and say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Come and draw me into Lent. Show me once again who you are. Teach me anew who I am. I am thirsty and weak, weary and confused. I don’t know how to listen to you. I don’t know how to speak to you. I don’t know how to follow you. I don’t know how to love you or obey you. Come, Lord. Lead me once again through the desert.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Lent Begins with Listening to Where God is Leading…

February 26th, 2009

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and today we enter fully into Lent. This year I am joining Christine Sine and many others in going through this Lenten Guide. Over the past few months I have been really excited about this. Bryan and I have been talking a lot about really entering into Lent and about using it as a time to cleanse our bodies, our lives and our hearts. We had been talking about some pretty extreme disciplines we wanted to try and engage in – including going Vegan for Lent. But, as Lent drew closer we started to hear a different message from God…

We started to hear God asking us to be present with where we are – to not try and make things happen – to accept that we can do nothing on our own and in our own strength and to open our hands and hearts to where he wants to lead us and the place in life that he has given us right now.

Over the past little bit I have been thinking a lot about this verse from John 15:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

The question, “What does it mean to remain in Christ?” has been circling in my head a lot lately. I can’t say that I’ve figured it out – I haven’t. But, I think that one part of it is to rest in trust and allow him to work instead of trying to force things myself. I realize that I do a lot in my own strength and power. I like being in control. I don’t like trusting others, and I especially don’t like trusting God. But, that’s exactly what I feel like He’s calling me to right now. He keeps reminding me that apart from him I can do nothing.

In the past few months God has slowly taken away a lot of security from my husband and I. He has slowly lead us to a place in various areas of our lives where we’ve had to trust him, and wait on him and where we haven’t been able to just do things in our own strength or timing. But, there were still things I was holding on to, I still felt like there were things that I could bring and offer and do. But, the past few weeks something has happened that I have no control over that I can’t do at all. And it’s made that phrase “apart from me you can do nothing” sink in for me in a new way. In this situation I can’t make anything happen, I can’t control the outcome, but there are small things that I can do to help create a fertile environment for God to work and I think it’s given me a picture of how God wants to work with me in other areas of my life. He wants me to stop grasping for the outcomes that I want, stop trying to control things and instead just remain with him, dwell with him and in doing so create a fertile environment for him to move and work and lead me on this journey.

The call of Lent for me this year is a call to let go, to stop striving, to trust and lean back into God’s open arms with reckless abandon. It is a call to remain in him and dwell intimately with him. It is a call to let go of my nagging doubt and distrust and to fall fully into Christ. It is a call to stop striving and fully recognize that it is only in Him that I move and breathe and have my being and apart from him I can do nothing.

That is what I feel God is calling me to this Lent. I’m not sure exactly what it will look like, but I want to follow.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Ash Wednesday Reflections: Confession

February 7th, 2008

candle.jpgMy friend Tara wrote a blog on her site about Ash Wednesday and Confession that encouraged me to think a little more about this concept of confession.  The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday at its heart is a liturgy of confession (we are but ashes and to ashes we shall return, we have fallen short, we have sinned, we need God) and as I read through the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer last night, and again read part of it posted on Tara’s blog, I found myself pondering this concept of confession. So, I wanted to share with you a few of my thoughts…

 I have been thinking off and on the last few weeks about the need to confess to each other… we talked about it a little bit during our storying time at Craig and Sarah’s a few weeks ago and then I was listening to a lecture on Christian history and reminded what an essential piece of the Christian journey confession has always been. There was a time in church history when to confess meant to stand before the whole body of believers/church and tell all of them what you had done wrong – to name your sin before them all – can you imagine that happening today? How foreign that is from our own experience! Even the more private act that confession eventually became in the church (thanks to the Irish concept of “anam cara”) has been lost in protestant circles especially and I wonder how much we have lost…

I think that when you confess to another human being there is something bonding and binding in that moment that we have perhaps lost by our attempt to keep our fellow believers at arm’s length and only show them the good sides of us. It makes me think of this quote I read once…”The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.” When we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity for fellowship.

But, we lose something else as well… We lose a sense of our need for God. It is only in naming and recognizing our sin that we can realize how much we really do need God. Too often I think I say that I need God but if I search myself carefully I don’t really think or act like I need him…I think I can do it on my own – it makes me think of a line from an Ingrid Michaelson song “I could write my name by the age of three and I don’t need anyone to cut my meat for me. I’m a big girl now, see my big girl shoes. It’ll take more than just a breeze to make me fall over.” Confession is an act that causes us to fall over and fall down; confession makes us admit that we aren’t as big as we think we are, we aren’t as strong as we think we are, we aren’t as self-sufficient as we think we are. Confession forces us to come face to face with our own inadequacy and our own need for a savior….When we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity to experience and recognize our own need for God.

I have had very limited experience with confession – I think really the one place that I have really experienced confession on a regular basis is with my husband. It seems like there are often moments when I can clearly see how I have sinned against him and wronged him and need to confess to him and ask for his forgiveness – and it’s a beautiful thing when that happens, in fact some of the times when I have felt closest to my husband has been the times when I have confessed to him some fault against him and humbly, often through tears, asked for his forgiveness. Then he holds me close and for a moment any brokenness that has been in our relationship is mended and I feel close to him, connected to him more deeply than normal. Maybe when we just jump to trying to fix our sin and change our ways and skip over confessing openly our sin we miss out on a precious moment of connection that we could experience with God. Perhaps when we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity to experience the loving embrace and close connectedness of God, our first Love.

… but confession is hard… and so foreign to my experience so far that I find myself lost as to how to incorporate it into my Christian walk… I’m starting to feel that confession is something that needs to be brought back into our communal church experience, but I don’t know how to confess… I don’t really know what confession should look like… or maybe that’s just my excuse – maybe the real fact of the matter is I fear confessing, I don’t want to confess, I don’t want to admit that I fail and sin and fall. I want to be strong and perceived as strong. I don’t want to be weak and perceived as weak. Again God brings me back to “lowly and meek, yet all-powerful” – confessing and repenting and falling down before God is a weakness that is also strength. But, it is not strength in myself or my own ability, it is strength in that it is recognizing that the only strength I have is found in Him. I need Him; I am nothing on my own. But, in Him I can become a new creation, a new life, and be given His strength. Confession is an act of death that leads to resurrection and life.

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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Ash Wednesday Reflections: Easter amidst Lent… Life amidst Death…

February 6th, 2008

Power amidst and from Weakness

“Lowly and meek, yet all-powerful”

I woke up with this phrase from the Celtic Book of Prayer rolling around in my head. As I did my morning yoga and got ready for the day I just kept unintentionally thinking “lowly and meek, yet all-powerful”… “lowly and meek, yet all-powerful”… “lowly and meek, yet all-powerful”. It seemed like such a random single phrase from the prayer to have stuck in my head and I just kept turning it over in my mind and wondering why I had this particular phrase stuck in my head. What was God trying to show me?

“Lowly and meek, yet all-powerful”

Good amidst and from Fallen Creation  

Later in the day I was reading a little bit from a book called Of Water and The Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism by Alexander Schmemann (very interesting book) and this section stuck out to me:
“He is the Savior of the world, not from the world. And he saves it by making us again that which we are. But if this is so, then the essential spiritual act – from which indeed stems the whole of “spirituality” – does not consist in identifying the world with evil… It consists not simply in discerning the “good” from the “evil”, but precisely in discerning the essential goodness of all that exists and acts, however broken and subdued to evil is its existence… We live, to be sure, in a wicked world. There seems to be no limit to its wickedness, to suffering and cruelty, confusion and lie, sin and crime, injustice and tyranny. Despair and disgust seem to need no justification; they almost appear to be the marks of wisdom and moral decency. And yet, it is indeed the first fruit in us of restored kingship that we not only can, but spiritually speaking must, while in this wicked world, rejoice in its essential goodness and make this joy, this gratitude, this knowledge of creation’s goodness the very foundation of our own life; that behind all deviations, all “brokenness,” all evil we can detect the essential nature and vocation of man and of all that exists and that was given to man as his kingdom. Man misuses his vocation, and in this horrible misuse he mutilates himself and the world; but his vocation itself is good. In his dealings with the world, nature and other men, man misuses his power; but his power itself is good. The misuse of his creativity in art, in science, in the whole of life leads him to dark and demonic dead ends; but his creativity itself, his need for beauty and knowledge, for meaning and fulfillment, is good. He satisfies his spiritual thirst and hunger with poison and lies, but the thirst and hunger themselves are good. He worships idols, but his need to worship is good. He gives wrong names to things and misinterprets reality, but his gift for naming and understanding is good. His very passions, which ultimately destroy him and life itself, are but deviated, misused and misdirected gifts of power. And thus, mutilated and deformed, bleeding and enslaved, blind and deaf, man remains the abdicated king of creation, still the object of God’s infinite love and respect. And to see this, to detect this, to rejoice in this while weeping about the fall, to render thanks for this, is indeed the essential act of genuine Christian spirituality, of the “new life” in us.”

Joy amidst and from Repentance

Then tonight I went to Marek and Elaine’s prayer room for a sort of Ash Wednesday service – a time to remember that we are ashes and to ashes we will return – a time to welcome each other into the season of Lent. We started the evening listening to Psalm 51 sung in Latin (beautiful) and taking time to quietly read and contemplate this powerful Psalm.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
       according to your unfailing love;
       according to your great compassion
       blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
       and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
       and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
       and done what is evil in your sight,
       so that you are proved right when you speak
       and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
       sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts [a] ;
       you teach [b] me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
       wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
       let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
       and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
       and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
       or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
       and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
       and sinners will turn back to you. 14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
       the God who saves me,
       and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
       and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
       you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are [c] a broken spirit;
       a broken and contrite heart,
       O God, you will not despise.  

Beauty amidst and from Ashes

Later in the evening I was speaking with a friend and she mentioned the phrase “Beauty from ashes” and how it had resonated with her lately. It struck me again – beauty from ashes. Ash Wednesday is a day of remembering that we are ashes and to ashes we will return. But, for me today it was also a day to remember that ashes is not where God leaves us – He breathes His life into us. He creates beauty from ashes. He takes us, ashes though we are, and makes something beautiful.

Life and Resurrection amidst and from Death

I have been wrestling lately with how to fully enter into and practice Lent this year. I have come up with a few ideas and been lead to a few things (like a focus on learning to pray) but there has been one thing that up until today I have really struggled with and been unsure about. You see I want to enter into Lent in its traditional sense with a focus on repentance and discipline and sacrifice – these things are at the heart of Lent and I figure if I want to experience Lent then I need to experience and enter into repentance and sacrifice. But, I also have strongly felt God calling me to a “diet of delight”, calling me to play, to learn to rejoice, to allow God’s rest and joy to reign in my life. I’ve felt like I have experienced a lot of “death” (figuratively speaking) in the past year and a lot of sacrifice (particularly with my diet because of some of the health struggles I’ve been having). So, I struggled with wanting to enter into the death of Lent but also desiring life and delight and joy and feeling in many ways like I’ve had enough death lately and need a rhythm of resurrection instead. But, today I realized that this doesn’t need to be an either or type situation – I can practice the repentance, discipline, humility, sacrifice, and death of Lent while also learning to practice and enter into the delight, goodness, joy, power and strength of Easter. One leads to the other… Repentance leads to joy… ashes can lead to beauty… death leads to resurrection… Lent leads to Easter… But, it doesn’t end there… “Blessing is at the end of the road. And that which is at the end of the road influences everything that takes place along the road. The end shapes the means. As Catherine of Siena said, ‘All the way to heaven is heaven.’ A joyful end requires a joyful means. Bless the Lord.” (Eugene Peterson). Joy isn’t just the end of repentance it is all along the road of repentance as well, it is amidst repentance. Life isn’t just the end of death, it is amidst death.  Easter isn’t just the end of Lent it is amidst Lent.

“Lowly and meek YET all-powerful.” Christ is BOTH lowly and meek AND all-powerful. Through the kingship which He restores us to through His Spirit we also enter into this dichotomy. We also become lowly and meek, yet at the same time all-powerful. We also experience life amidst our death. We also become beautiful though we are but ashes.

So, I begin this season of Lent humbled, repentant, and willing to sacrifice. But, I also enter this season of Lent rejoicing, celebrating, joyful, and even playfully expectant of the life and resurrection that has come, is coming and is to come.

Rejoicing in the journey  -
Beth Stedman

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