Bold Day

Two years ago, I saw "The Passion of the Christ" on Ash Wednesday. My co-worker Annette, an Episcopalian, went with me and we attended the Ash Wednesday service at her church beforehand. I found it very meaningful. How often are we reminded of our inferiority? The world sings the song of independence, inner strength, self-sufficiency. And yet, without God we are nothing.

In "Girl Meets God," a book that retraces her path of conversion from Judaism to Christianity, Lauren Winner reflects on Ash Wednesday, the day that inaugurates Lent (the season culminating in Easter):

The imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is nothing if not bold.

The whole day is bold. There is a bold gash of ecclesiastical purple hanging on the wall of my Puritan-white simple Episcopal church, and our rector, Milind, wears an equally starling purple chasuble, which he will wear for all of Lent. It is a bold liturgy the Book of Common Prayer suggests we recite: to acknowledge that we are of dust and to dust we shall return, and to proclaim our chosen-ness as the children of God anyway.

But the ashes are boldest of all. A dark and undeniable slash across your forehead, a bold proclamation of death and resurrection all at once. You forget that it is on your forehead and you walk out of church, out into the world, a living reminder that Christ died for us. The cross Milind makes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday is no polite, small slice of silver dangling around my neck but easily slipped behind my blouse. The ash cross is bold, and undeniable.

The cross on our foreheads is meant to be a dramatic reminder to ourselves and it is that. When Milind looks at me and says, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return, " I know what God did for me. He not only created me, He then poured out His grace upon em in the blood of His son. Me, a bunch of dust!

The challenge, as I enter Lent, is to be this bold in my proclamation of the Gospel all year.

A good reminder.

[photo by Linda Smith.]