This week marks the beginning of Lent, that season in the church year when the faithful prepare for the coming of Christ in his glory-as the one who died in solidarity with all who suffer unjustly. On Ash Wednesday we are literally marked with the substance of our own mortality-ashes to ashes, dust to dust. While receiving ashes may be a challenge this year it is still possible to mark these forty days.
In these long and difficult days, when days and weeks run together like an endless stream of sameness, perhaps we can mark Lent this year with a virtual wearing, recognition and acceptance of our mortality, our humanness, our utter limitedness. One way to do that would be to choose a text to meditate during Lent and to use it as a guide to prayer. The psalm for Ash Wednesday this year is Psalm 51 which I commend to you and is printed below (a paraphrase from the Living Bible). Perhaps you can imagine other ways to mark this season as we continue to walk together while apart. Let us know other ways you are marking Lent this year in your waiting and watching.
I also invite each one of you to join us virtually for chapel each Thursday at 11 on ZOOM (link here). This week Rev. Ramelia Williams will be bringing the Word as we begin this Lenten Season.
Rev. Ramelia Williams earned her MDIV and a certificate in Spiritual Direction at North Park Theological Seminary and the C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction. Rev. Ramelia serves as Director of Ministry Initiatives for the Love Mercy Do Justice (LMDJ) Mission Priority of the Evangelical Covenant Church. She is passionate about creating environments for stimulating racial reconciliation and inner healing through the church. Please join us to hear this gifted preacher and servant of God.
Psalm 51
O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions. 2 Oh, wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again. 3 For I admit my shameful deed—it haunts me day and night. 4 It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing. You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. 5 But I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 You deserve honesty from the heart; yes, utter sincerity and truthfulness. Oh, give me this wisdom.
7 Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood and I shall be clean again. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 And after you have punished me, give me back my joy again. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins—erase them from your sight. 10 Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. 11 Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to other sinners, and they—guilty like me—will repent and return to you. 14-15 Don’t sentence me to death. O my God, you alone can rescue me. Then I will sing of your forgiveness, for my lips will be unsealed—oh, how I will praise you.
16 You don’t want penance; if you did, how gladly I would do it! You aren’t interested in offerings burned before you on the altar. 17 It is a broken spirit you want—remorse and penitence. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not ignore.
18 And Lord, don’t punish Israel for my sins—help your people and protect Jerusalem.
19 And when my heart is right, then you will rejoice in the good that I do and in the bullocks I bring to sacrifice upon your altar.
Join us on ZOOM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86594534520?pwd=SlBkc1dDdGhvcnJCTllKNUFFRzZ1UT09