Again & Again: Ashes & Light

Ashe Wednesday Service, Lent 2021

Scripture Focus: Genesis 3:19

https://youtu.be/AWrGejA4xfs

Reflection

Note: I began this message with a testimony of pain and hurt from leaving a difficult situation in Charlotte, NC

Maybe you, like me, have some friends who will probably never apologize, never recognize how deeply they hurt you, never acknowledge all that you sacrificed, friends who sought control and authority,. And so finally you gave in and gave up. And though you reach out in and for forgiveness, those friends have never looked back (at least never acknowledged that they have). So you, like me, are still searching for a way to forgive.

It’s the kind of forgiveness that we can only work out with God. I reached out several times in the year or two following a particularly difficult split during our days in Charlotte, but nothing came of it. I even said to a former friend who was involved in it that I knew there were no doubt ways that I had hurt him and I wanted to talk about those and learn myself about them and seek forgiveness. I said I understood it might be too much for him to talk about at that time, but that I would be waiting when he was ready. I am still waiting. 

The one time our paths would have crossed this friend came unannounced to my fathers funeral. I am not sure if this was him reaching out to finally talk. And yet to do that on the day of my father’s funeral – well, I struggle to quantify in words how inappropriate and bad timing that was. That day was one of the most emotionally difficult times of my life. By coming unannounced, this I friend brought with him the weight of all this pain and it came pressing back down upon me in that moment. And it was too much to bear.

I have sought forgiveness over the years. I have talked with you before about how sometimes forgiveness it not something we can work out with our fellow humans beings. I may be repentant, but if the other person is not, then forgiveness stalls. And so we are left with God and with self to work out forgiveness. To come to a place that we release ourselves from the burden, the weight that sin holds over us. You see, so often the pain, the hurt, the burden, the weight that we carry around because of something that has happened to us – well, that weight is what we choose to carry. 

Through Christ, we can let that weight go. Jesus will pick that burden up and help to carry us forward. No, this doesn’t relieve you from any responsibility towards your fellow humans here on earth, but it certain can and will help you navigate the pain and hurt in your heart, mind, and soul. 

We have talked about this before. One occasion was a sermon from our freeway series a few years ago – Forgiveness: Holding on Keeps Us From Moving On. Specifically. we talked about forgiveness as relatable debt and how we can acknowledging the debt, release the debt, and then by practicing mercy we can live debt free.

Here is what I have found over the years with some of the most difficult relational debt that I have dealt with in my life: I find that again and again, I allow a difficult relationship to take out a new transaction. Or to say it another way, I discover another receipt, another note, that was taken out long ago that has still not been reconciled. And so just when I thought I had let it all go, again there was something I missed. Or, again I let something resurface or trigger old feelings I let go of long ago. 

And it’s not only relational debt. Sometimes it’s simply grief that resurfaces in our lives. Sometimes it’s the loss of a loved one years back that rises again in our heart and we are brought right back to that moment of loss. Grief is cyclical. It doesn’t really have a beginning and end. Yes, things get easier with each day, but there are also days when you and I are brought right back to tears over the loss of a loved one.

And it is those tears that tell of our love! You see, both the resurfacing of grief and the resurfacing of pain from relational debt, they are a sign of our love and compassion. If you didn’t care you would not grieve, you would not be pained over a past hurt. In fact, I might go so far as to say that the cycle of grief, the resurfacing of past pain is God’s love continuing to work its way in and through us. It’s because you love that you feel these things. And so again and again as these feelings resurface, we need help, we need God.

And I think this is why God gave us seasons – specifically why God gave his church a calendar of season with one of those being Lent. A time of forgiveness and repentance, of prayer and fasting, a time of practicing mercy and giving to those in need. Because again and again I find myself needing to let go of things that are newly burdening me and of old things that have resurfaced.

Again and again, I need Jesus.

Again and again, I need God, my holy mama, my heavenly daddy.

Again and again, I need the holy spiritual to breath life into these dry bones.

Again and again… That is what our series is about this Lent.

As we begin again today this time of lent this opportunity to return to deep spiritual practices like prayer and fasting and repentance and giving of our time talent and treasure, we humble ourselves. We remind ourselves that we were once dust. That God gives us the gift of life that it is precious that we so easily take it for granted, that we so easily treat each other like dirt and dust rather than creatures filled with the spirit of God, that we need to repent of treating each other so terribly, and that at the end of the day both those we love and hate along with our own self, we will all return to the dirt and dust. And we rest in the truth and the hope that because of Jesus, because of the way God wrote resurrection into the dust of creation, that we can live in spirit and truth forever and ever with God. So that the dust is not the final word!