My fifth Lent blog - an extra day

What to do with this leap day? One extra day every four years making the dreary month of February one day longer. Apart from ladies being able to propose today, it’s a day when leaplings can celebrate their birthday on their actual birthday. One of our Circuit stewards is 19 today.

I’ve been at the hospital and have tried to clear a mountain of admin with a large mug of coffee. Apart from that it’s been a day like any other. Getting on with getting on. And making a difference. How about this article about one of my villages in yesteryear and why the vicar was popular!!!!!

I found this on an American website: 

Leap Years are necessary to sync the Gregorian calendar with the earth's revolutions around the sun. The earth requires 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to make one revolution. Since the Gregorian calendar year only has 365 days, failing to add one day every four years would mean losing six hours annually and a total of 24 days over 100 years.

In chapter 10 of the book of Joshua, Joshua needed extra time. Daylight was waning, and he hadn't finished defeating God's enemies. He decided to pray and ask God for more time. God answered by allowing the sun to stand still.

I've often wished for more than an extra day. A few more hours in every day would do nicely.

Joshua's reason for needing extra time was admirable; mine doesn't always fall into the same category. I suppose when God gives extra time I need to reflect on why I have it. Is it because I'm lazy? Are there things I should do? Does God have plans I'm not following? Does He want me to rest?

Of course, the opposite may also be true. God might withhold extra time because I'm not using His allotted time judiciously. Jesus tells several parables demonstrating the necessity of using wisely what God has given along with warning about what can happen when I don't.

Leap Year gives me an extra day for meditation-and perhaps action. A day that won't surface for another four years. A day to meditate on some crucial questions: "What have I done with Jesus?" And "What am I doing for Him?" A day to contemplate His goodness in spite of my badness as well as His undeserved unconditional love and forgiveness even when I don't meet His expectations.

Leap Year re-aligns the calendar with the earth's rotation, preventing the loss of time. Taking advantage of the extra time God gives can re-align priorities, decisions, relationships, and life in general.

I don’t like the Old Testament thing of defeating enemies as God’s work - not helpful in the climate of Israel and Gaza today - but I get the point of the article. 

Do we need extra time to make good our mistakes, sort our priorities? Or like Brian Bilston do we just make the best of every day? I guess so. 

My fourth Lent blog - the God who invites us to laugh

A reflection on today’s scripture passages: 

“Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.”

 

Having lost his wife after a long marriage, Albert went to the undertaker to arrange a headstone for her. She had been a devout and faithful Christian so he wanted the words “she was thine” on the stone. Imagine his horror when the stone was done and erected and he visited the cemetery to see it said “she was thin.” Albert rang the undertaker. “They’ve left an e off!” he said. “I’ll put it right” said the undertaker. So next time Albert visited the cemetery he was confident all would be well. It wasn’t. The stone now read “Eee, she was thin!”

 

Well, it makes me laugh that old joke. 

 

What makes you laugh? What about classic television sketches that are really old but we laugh like we’ve never seen them or maybe because we know what is coming. We know every word of the twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers, or the Andrew Preview sketch on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas show: “I’m playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.” Or what about maybe the funniest piece of writing ever. The wonderful Victoria Wood Two soups with amazing timing from Julie Walters. “One soup, and another soup.” 

 

Are there times we can only laugh because what is happening to us or suggested might happen to us feels so ridiculous it’s laughable? Today we are invited to consider Sarai, renamed Sarah and her reaction to divine plans for her. Who was she? She was married to someone on a mission from God. And, not just any mission. God told Abram (who would become Abraham) that he would be the father of a great nation. Not only that, but he would have to leave their home country to do it. This wasn’t some fly-by-night fantasy of youth, either. Abraham was 75 years old when he set off on this mission. He didn’t have any biological children at this point. He took up his family, including his nephew Lot, and all of everybody’s stuff and took off to follow up on God’s promises.  That was a laughable plan wasn’t it. Imagine Abram’s neighbours'reaction. “Where are you going? You’re going to be the father of how many nations, at 75?” You are having a laugh! Imagine Sarai’s reaction when Abram told her they were moving with no idea where they were heading to live in tents as foreigners with no abiding city. Remember Abram was a man of considerable wealth and influence in Haran and he was prepared to give that all up to follow his God. 

 

So I imagine Abram and Sarai pondering often how on earth Abram could be the father of many nations when as Romans says he was as good as dead. We will return to that phrase. 

Can we predict or anticipate what God will do in our lives and our world? Story after story in our Scripture, tradition, and experience points to an unpredictable God. God moves, calls, and pulls in ways that are surprising, creative, and yes, laughable. Billy Graham once had a question-and-answer session. 

“Did Jesus ever smile or laugh, or was hesolemn all the time? I have a friend who's very solemn, and he says he doesn't believe in laughing or cracking jokes, because Jesus never laughed, and we ought to be like Jesus.

I feel sorry for your friend, because a balanced sense of humor can save us from taking ourselves too seriously and help us see through the pride and pretence of our sinful world. Did Jesus have a sense of humour? I’m sure He did. Think, for example, of His comment that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a prideful, selfish rich person to enter heaven (you can read it in Mark 10:25). Can you picture a camel trying to go through the eye of a needle—without laughing? I doubt it.”

The story of Abraham and Sarah is one of surprise. They have made a logical assumption that they won’t be able to have children of their own together (to read about how they have taken matters into their own hands, read the story of Hagar and Ishmael!) They have no idea what is about to happen. 

Then God moves. God blesses Abram and Sarai in ways no one could have predicted– not only with children but with the blessing of covenant. Like a marriage, like a religious vow, like a sacred contract, God solidifies a relationship with Abram and Sarai through a covenant and a promise, and they are transformed.

They are so transformed they even get new names that demonstrate their new blessing, their new identities. The name Sarai signifies “my lady,” or “my princess,” the matriarch of one family. “Sarah” expands that identity to “Lady,” or “Princess,” one for the multitude, not just a particular line. 

Similarly, in Hebrew, the name Abram means “exalted father” and Abraham means “father of a multitude.” Their new identities are without restriction, expanded in a way they could never have imagined.

What would happen if we were open to the impossible? Open to being surprised, open to being transformed? How would our lives – individual and communal – change if we walked around being open to being transformed, to meeting God in ways that are unexpected and surprising? 

That’s Genesis chapter 17 but Abraham and Sarah still don’t know how they will aid the future unless it’s through Ishmael, but nowSarah has a huge role in the drama, and I get her reaction. We have these three visitors, later in icons seen as the Trinity. God himself visits these elderly souls to convince them of his future and his need of them. So, in Genesis 18 we read this:

They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." The Lord said, "I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son." But Sarah denied, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. He said, "No, but you did laugh." 

Beyond the dividing curtain in the tent, Sarah was listening to everything. She was doing the dishes just beyond the tent curtain, but she heard all the conversation between her husband and the visitors. She hears the question and the promise, and she realises it is God who is saying that she will have a son. 

One commentator says “She looks at her ninety-year-old body, long since almost dead. She looks in the mirror and sees the whiteness of her hair, the wrinkles in her face. She feels the arthritis in her bones. And when she hears this, she laughs cynically to herself.”

She makes no sound at all, but laughs to herself, we are told. But beyond the curtains, the Lord reads her thoughts and says to Abraham, "Why does Sarah laugh in her heart? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I'll set a date for this: I'll be back next spring, and she shall have a son." And we read that Sarah was afraid. She saw that her heart was open and known to God. 

She saw that there was one who reads hearts as we read books, and she reacted just like we do. She denied that she had laughed. And the word comes to her. "No, but you did laugh. Admit it, face it: you did laugh, Sarah."

Remarkably enough, the account ends there. Suddenly the subject is dropped, and another situation is introduced in the next paragraph. We are left to wonder what this means. 

Back in Chapter 17, when God announced to Abraham for perhaps the fifth time that he was to have a son, we are told that Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah who is ninety years old bear a son?"This is the laugh of exulting joy over what God had promised. It is a laughter of faith delighting in what God would do in spite of every conceivable problem. Sarah’s laughter I think is a “don’t be daft” laugh. 

Romans 4 summarises the story: 

 “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.  This is why “it was counted to him as righteousness.” 

Let’s remember while this is a story about Sarah and Abraham, this is also a story about God making and keeping a promise. 

 

Charles Wesley puts it like this:

Faith, mighty faith the promise sees,
And looks to God alone.
Laughs at impossibilities and cries, "it shall be done”.

 

I do love that Abraham names Sarah's child after her laugh. Isaac means laughter. Laughter, once the sign of her exhaustion and exasperation, in this child, becomes a sign of God’s grace and covenant. Sarah may have even told people this story, laughing again, this time at the goodness of it all. There’s a lovely verse in Genesis 21 which sees Sarah telling her story: And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.” – Genesis 21:6

 

What makes you laugh? What is God going to say to us when he visits our tent? Maybe it’s time to follow the ridiculous and laugh together it might come to be. Maybe it won’t be a child. But some new life will surely surprise us. Here’s now…

There’s not much to laugh about in the world this morning is there? It was the second anniversary yesterday of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We hardly hear about Ukraine now - it’s one of those situations that rumbles on and on. Then there’s Israel and Gaza and Yemen and the Middle East. Not much to laugh about. 

 

The Gospel passage for today is Jesus’ call to take up your cross. Nothing to laugh about there. 

A cross was the way you rid of someone. Jesus calls Peter and the other disciples to carry their crosses, not yet a symbol of Christianity, but a tool for Roman power and control. The disciples and early Christians were called to lead what would have been considered nearly criminal lives under Jesus’ alternative kingdom, the kingdom of God. Carrying the cross always ends with one’s death, either death at the hands of the Romans, as happened to many disciples, or death to self and ambition, as often happens to us when we follow the way of Jesus. Not much to laugh about.

 

But there’s a verse in the Gospel that Jesus would have us notice this morning. We have to lose our life in order to save it. Maybe we are being called to follow the God of laughter and hope and joy to the cross but remember he doesn’t leave us there. Maybe the God of laughter and hope and joy is found in the brokenness and mess of the world and tells us he will have the last laugh. No one expected resurrection. We are called to live laughter out of despair, hope out of hopelessness and new life out of death. The God of laughter and hope and joy calls us to be faithful and to share a different story to the miserable one about us. Our God turns mourning into dancing!

 

God of grace and God of laughter,
singing worlds from nought to be
sun and stars and all thereafter
joined in cosmic harmony:
give us songs of joy and wonder,
music making hearts rejoice;
let our praises swell like thunder,
echoing our Maker's voice.

When our lives are torn by sadness,
heal our wounds with tuneful balm;
when all seems discordant madness,
help us find a measured calm.
Steady us with music's anchor
when the storms of life increase;
in the midst of hurt and rancour,
make us instruments of peace.

 

Turn our sighing into singing,
music born of hope restored;
set our souls and voices ringing,
tune our hearts in true accord:
till we form a mighty chorus
joining angel choirs above,
with all those who went before us,
in eternal hymns of love.

Times of support in wilderness moments - my third Lent blog

Today is the first Sunday of Lent and in our churches we’ve been considering wilderness times in life. I’ve led three congregations today in worship and my brain has thought about three things really… at the end of a busy Sunday I am sharing what wilderness and help through it might mean. I love this picture of an empty Carthorpe chapel. There was no one in it when I arrived tonight! They were all out the back putting cups out for refreshments afterwards. 

First I think I’ve been struck by the fact in Mark’s Gospel Jesus is “driven” by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. The Greek word used for “driven” is the same word used to describe driving out demons later in the Gospel so it’s a strong word. Almost that we are compelled in life to have times when we are made to consider who we are and what life is all about. Today has been an important day in the church at Allhallowgate. We sat on chairs for the first time in the church for worship. The place was rocking, it looked fresh and the atmosphere lighter. I did suggest maybe we’ve had for the last three and a half years a time of discernment and working out what we are meant to be. And that maybe now it’s exciting and hopeful as we emerge with some growth points - not just chairs - but even they are a sign of revolution. Jesus began his ministry but only when he’d discerned his calling. Maybe churches which are stuck need to do the same. Work out what you are for. God is doing a new thing. Are we joining in?? 

Perhaps we are. I’ve just received this:

“I wanted to go out of the church shouting wow come and see the smiling congregation. What a special feel today. Not often the first Sunday in lent has been so special. Thank you.”

Normally the minister who dares to take out pews gets snotty letters - not here he hasn’t. There’s a right time. I got quite emotional this morning. It felt like we are together on the edge of something happening.

Second, I think in the wilderness story we need to see that Jesus gets that life is hard and so understands when we are struggling. As I drove up the A1M to Bedale for 9am communion this morning - 13 hours ago - I had the Radio 4 service on which came from Glasgow University. The chapel choir sang these words: 

Don’t tell me of a faith that fears
To face the world around
Don’t dull my mind with easy thoughts
of grace without a ground.

I need to know that God is real!
I need to know that Christ can feel
the need to touch and love and heal
the world, including me!

Don’t speak of piety and prayers
Absolved from human need;
Don’t talk of spirit without flesh
Like harvest without seed.

Don’t sate my soul with common sense
Distilled from ages past
Inept for those who fear the world’s
about to breathe its last.

Don’t set the cross before my eyes
unless you tell the truth
of how the Lord, who finds the lost,
was often found uncouth.

So let the Gospel come alive
in actions plain to see
in imitation of the one
whose love extends to me.

I need to know that God is real!
I need to know that Christ can feel
the need to touch and love and heal
the world, including me!

That Jesus gets it matters. We don’t need a Jesus who is sugary sweet. We need a Jesus who is vulnerable and scarred and who struggles and hurts but who comes through those times. Lent points us to passion and a cross but then to joy and resurrection life. But we have to suffer in order to find healing and we have to die in order to rise and that is hard. 

Then thirdly, the Markan account of wilderness has Jesus waited on by angels. Who are the people who are angels to us when we are in the wilderness? Or are we abandoned by people? I remember when our manse wasn’t habitable being moved to Hailsham, a town we didn’t know. I was depressed and unwell and eventually when I dragged back into a Methodist Church to sit on the back row the little congregation at Hailsham were angels to me without knowing it. 

This week has seen the sudden passing of the DJ Steve Wright. There’s been an outpouring of grief and sadness. The nation has come together to mourn, to share stories and to listen his favourite music. Sunday Love Songs has been on for 28 years and today Liza Tarbuck, another broadcaster I love whose Saturday night programme gets better as she gets more sozzled on a second bottle of wine, and goes on about the Leisure Peninsula, well she led us in what was a community book of remembrance as people shared stories of him reading out dedications at important life moments. I listened to part of the programme driving back down the A1M and caught up with the rest of it tonight. I am in bits. Liza said this  "So while you're getting a tissue, I think it would be lovely if you lit him a candle. I make no apologies if I get upset over the next two hours and I don't think you should either." It was as though the nation was looking after each other today. There was something deeply spiritual going on. Of God? Well, yes. And it was a masterpiece of broadcasting. 

Wilderness, driven there, knowing our experience and supporting each other when life hurls a rock at us, that’s where Lent begins. And now I’m done in. But I’ve made a start to the journey… and there is hope and a buzz about. 

Life’s journey - my second Lent blog

Sometimes a simple journey can turn into a nightmare. Take the train, they say. Then you hit the reality of LNER! I’m beginning to write this on Leeds station after one of the most unpleasant journeys I’ve undertaken for many years. A five coach train when we’d all booked a seat on a ten coach one. We crammed on. The train manager, a lovely man called Neil told us those on the trains were “sick of it” as putting five coach trains on when there were meant to be double the coaches is a regular occurrence. The carriage I was in got hotter and hotter and it was unbearable until it began to lessen in numbers at Wakefield Westgate —- and now I’m stuck in Leeds as there was a failed train on the platform in front of us so we sat outside the station for ages so I’ve missed my connection to Harrogate. There’s another in a bit. Neil said “I would say I hope the delays haven’t caused you inconvenience but I know they have. I’m so sorry.”

Maybe the journey of life is as complicated. Three of us at a thanksgiving service today (which I’ll come to) were reflecting on the state of the world. We were discussing food banks in affluent areas. People’s journeys are tough and it’s hard to keep going. We get on for the ride but it’s not comfortable and it’s tough to see a way forward as tough as folk trying to get through coach B to the loo past people standing in every space they could find. Neil said “I would normally pass through the train but that’s impossible!” We loved his honesty. 

Life is tough. The journey is hard. We need help. Tomorrow I’m leading a quiet day for my circuit on journeying. Sadly there’s only a few coming. But we will have a good time. Abram journeyed into the unknown “not knowing whither he went” to a land that God would show him. People thought he was mad but he had his eye and heart on the destination - not Harrogate - but an abiding with God in “a city which has the foundations whose builder and maker is God.” I love that chapter of the letter to the Hebrews. It’s about certainty in uncertainty. Moses, my second character tomorrow, found a burning bush irresistible, but he wasn’t sure he was equipped to make the journey God called him to make. Then there’s Jesus. Jesus who made a journey into the desert to think for forty long days. I’m writing a sermon and blog for Sunday about when we are driven on

a journey - compelled to go, even if we don’t know how we will get there.

Today we’ve been at the thanksgiving service for the life of Brenda Ackroyd. There aren’t many people I’d leave the house at 7.30am for and have a day of rail hassle! Brenda had a long life and her journey was one of deep faith, smiling and Christian witness and certainty. She helped many young people at Batford church know how to live in a right and good way, she was a down to earth Methodist local preacher, she led the sisterhood at Kinsbourne Green when I was lay worker there, I shared leading junior church at Batford with her and her husband Geoff, she was a dear friend to many (we were all “dear”) and she was an encouraging letter writer. I have many letters from her written to encourage me on important points of my journey. Brenda knew God in Jesus held her in life and now holds her in eternity and it was a privilege to be back in Harpenden today even if I’m not home yet — to celebrate her pilgrimage. 

We need certainty when there’s so much in life that is uncertain. I’m on the last bit of my journey on the train to Harrogate. Late! But I’ll arrive back in one piece - just. Deacon Sarah, who led Brenda’s service just right today shared with us she sang a hymn with Brenda in her final days, which summed up her faith and positivity. 

“Breathe through the heat of our desire, thy coolness and thy balm, let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, o still small voice of calm.” 

Tonight Neil said he would get us home. Late yes, but safe. And God does that too. Remember Jesus in that wilderness desolation was attended to by angels. Uncertainty on the journey? God is with us and ahead of us… know it. Maybe if we are stuck in a LNER nightmare we need to know we will get through it. I rather therefore like tonight’s nite blessing and I pray it for you if your journey is hard and you cannot see a way ahead.

May the flame of hope be kept alight in your soul by the grace and mercy of God. No matter how dark things seem, and no matter how far away the dawn feels, may God hold you through it all. May you hear the heartbeat of his tender care as he embraces you in the dark. 

Ash Wednesday - remember you are dust…

The last time it happened was 2018; Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday (marking the start of Lent) falling on the same day.

The next time will be 2029, and then the wait will be more than 100 years until it happens again in 2170! 

“For some people, it could be a little confusing, said a priest the last time this happened: “Do I fast, or do I eat my chocolate?”

What do we do with a day that has two important things in it. A friend sent me a helpful Roman Catholic blog when I posted on Facebook I was sitting in the church in Allhallowgate in the quietness on Monday night seeking inspiration. I’d put in my diary for Monday night “write sermon for Wednesday.”

Father Thomas Conway writes “I find it thought provoking that Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day fall on the same day this year. The differences in the two commemorations are just this side of comical. 

Valentines Day conjures up two people scrubbed clean for an important evening out. On Ash Wednesday most Catholics see it as a sacred duty to find a church so that some duly designated person can purposely smear black ashes on the most prominent place on the body. And of course, it’s not a random mark but the sign of the cross symbolising the death of Jesus. Valentines Day often comes accompanied by robust demands for creativity, some obligations of gift giving and an aura of extravagance. One rose is not enough and a dozen roses is also not enough. Keep going. Everything about Ash Wednesday roars of sacrifice, desolation, austerity, simplicity, retrenchment. Don’t you even dare think about a delicious steak dinner! A proper Valentines Day it seems, should send off fireworks of self esteem: messages of “I feel great about me, I feel great about you. I feel great about us together.” 

Next to Good Friday, Ash Wednesday is the Catholic person’s highest holiday of cataloging, indexing and cross referencing every one of our most grievous and most minor transgressions against God and humanity.” 

So can we do both things? What do we write in a Valentine card? “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return”?! 

Well let’s think about the word Valentine. There is a four-letter word in it. That word is Lent. So maybe you can’t have Valentines without Lent in it. Bare with me! 

Two things strike me.

When we are ashed if that is our tradition and we find it helpful and I know a lot of Methodist people don’t do this day, it is a public sign that indeed we were dust and to dust we shall return. God created us from the ground and one day when we end this life on earth, we shall return to it. We are reminded on Ash Wednesday that life on earth is short. We have one go at it. Maybe at the beginning of Lent we are reminded of our mortality. We recall God's words to Adam in Genesis 3:19, “for dust you are, and to dust you will return.” These brutally realistic words from three thousand years ago stand in stark contrast to the archetypal lie that Satan told Eve, and the denial that flourishes today: "surely you will not die!"

Ash Wednesday is thus "the most honest of days," says Sara Miles in her book City of God, because it's a day when the church reminds us of what our culture denies, and what no one else will tell us—that our days are limited, and that we've made a mess of things. The hard truth of Lent is thus a blessing because it deconstructs our lies and tells us the truth. Lent helps us to live in reality.

So maybe the challenge today is to live every day well. Because we haven’t long here. Time rushes on. On a pastoral visit on Monday a man said “how long you been here now. Two years?” He was shocked when I said it will be four in the summer. 

In her book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory,(what a great title)  Caitlin Doughty aims to "look mortality straight in the eye," based upon her years working as a mortician.

 In her view, "death should be known. Known as a difficult mental, physical, and emotional process, respected and feared for what it is." 

She would disrupt our "polite complacency" about a taboo topic. "When you know that death is coming for you, the thought inspires you to be ambitious, to apologise to old enemies, call your grandparents, work less, travel more, learn Russian, take up knitting. Fall in love." Which is to say, we can live a better life if we think more intentionally about death. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. And the second bit —- “turn away from your sins and believe the good news.”

Maybe knowing we are here for a purpose we will be renewed to live life fully. 

The Psalmist saw the need of a new beginning. We think Psalm 51 was prayed by David after Nathan the prophet had challenged him about being a very naughty boy with Uriah’s wife… “create in me a clean heart o God and put a new and right spirit within me.” Jesus wanted his people to be quietly loving. That’s why he condemns showy off religion all about wanting to make us feel good and noticed. The popular belief about St Valentine is that he was a priest from Rome in the third century AD. Emperor Claudius II had banned marriage because he thought married men were bad soldiers. Valentine felt this was unfair, so he broke the rules and arranged marriages in secret. 

When Claudius found out, Valentine was thrown in jail and sentenced to death. There, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and when he was taken to be killed on 14 February, he sent her a love letter signed “from your Valentine”.

Whether there is any truth in that story we do not know but maybe today we begin Lent celebrating sacrificial and unending love. As the old hymn says, “live this day as if thy last.” 

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

We celebrate love today of all sorts and most of all the eternal love of God which is overwhelming and more lasting and healthier than even the largest most expensive box of chocolates. Lent reminds us yes of our mortality and the need to live well, but also of our destiny. 

An old prayer book prayer for Lent said that where death began, life will be restored and that the Evil One who by a tree once overcame will likewise by a tree be overcome. The apple tree of the Garden of Eden will be superseded by a cross-shaped tree on a gruesome hill outside Jerusalem; there the possibility of life with God was born. 

The sermon is morbid, but it also has in it the promise of resurrection.

 

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day together are odd partners. But then ours is an odd faith, a faith that began in the dust and ashes of a borrowed tomb, a grave, a place of death. That womb of dust and ash and death was the resting place of Christ who loved the world all the way to death on a cross.

 

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These are the words that will be spoken over us in our service today. The clock is ticking. But the mark of the cross remindsus that there is so much more. Ashes are not forever. Endings always have new beginningsafter them.

 

You can’t have Valentines without Lent in it. Write that in a card next time the two things happen on the same day in five years time.

 

Now, even now, in the midst of dust and ashes on this day of love, it is a day of deep grace a day when we remember we are in the hands of God in life, in death and into the glory of eternity.

 

Jesus, you place on my forehead
the sign of my sister Death:
"Remember you are dust,
and to dust you shall return."

How not hear her wise advice? 
One day my life on earth will end;
the limits on my years are set,
though I know not the day or hour.
Shall I be ready to go to meet you? 
Let this holy season be a time of grace
for me and all this world. 

"Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart."
O Jesus, you place on my forehead
the sign of your saving Cross:
"Turn from sin and be faithful
to the gospel."

How can I turn from sin
unless I turn to you? 

You speak, you raise your hand,
you touch my mind and call my name,
"Turn to the Lord your God again." 

These days of your favour
leave a blessing as you pass
on me and all your people.
Turn to us, Lord God,
and we shall turn to you.