2016 Belmont University Lenten GuideSample

Ashes are left when everything else is burned up: “thrown on the ash heap” and “reduced to ash” are about as far away from hopeful as one can go. No one sends cards for Ash Wednesday. While during other seasons we greet each other with Merry Christmas or Happy Easter, Ash Wednesday is a holiday in the true sense of “holy day”-- that has nothing to do with cheerfulness. Ash Wednesday brings us back to the Jesus who said, “How long must I put up with you, you adulterous people?” The Jesus of whom the beloved disciple wrote, “Many people… entrusted their lives to Him. But Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to them. He knew them inside and out, and how untrustworthy they were.” Jesus is not fooled by us. Truth be told, we don’t fool others as often as we think. About the only person we consistently fool is ourselves. We convince ourselves that we occasionally make mistakes, not that we are real live sinners. We remember the high points of our Christian lives and believe, against plenty of evidence, that we have become consistently generous and forgiving and patient and selfless. But God knows differently. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of 40 days of repentance and confession. “Confess” meant literally to “admit together.” We are in a season of the year when together we can stop being defensive or self-justifying. Together, as a Christian community of learning and service, we can admit that we are no strangers to the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and laziness. Since the 4th Century, Christians have used this comprehensive list of vices to examine their lives in order to be able to repent. Yet Christianity never deludes us into thinking of spiritual life as a self-improvement plan to please God. Quite the opposite. God comes into the world and into our lives to bear in Himself the full weight of our sin. We are thus freed to admit how awful we are because we don’t trust in ourselves, but in Jesus: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 6:20–21) Jesus takes away all our sins and remakes us from the inside out, if only we will let Him. TODD LAKE Vice President of Spiritual Development College of Theology & Christian Ministry