In many church traditions, today is known as Ash Wednesday. Today services are held
to mark the start of a forty-day journey (known as Lent) of personal reflection leading up to Easter when Christ died and rose for our sins. We sin when we choose to turn away from or deny God in our thoughts, actions or attitudes. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from having a meaningful relationship with God.
Our scriptures are a love story of how God called humanity back repeatedly whenever humanity chose the route of sin. God helped us out of the grip of our perpetual cycle of sin by sending Jesus to open the way for all eternity to God. Jesus took on himself the death and destruction sin brings. All we need
to do is to receive Jesus and hand over our sins to him.
Identifying our sins is a challenging matter. Sin is subtle and often
intertwined with the things we hold dearest in our hearts. We go to great lengths to satisfy our hunger for material comforts, for position or power in society, or even to feed our sense of pride. We jealously hold on to relationships with loved ones. We allow our intellect to control our decisions and grow angry when challenged. We harbour resentments and keep score of other’s transgressions, and so the list goes on. The web of sin slowly squeezes the life out of us that God desires we
have.
Yet Joel reminds us today that God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.
Perhaps God is inviting you today to mark this space as a start to a slow and meaningful introspection of your life. When have you chosen to live in a way that either
rejected God or refused to acknowledge God’s existence? Are there actions or attitudes you don’t feel proud of? God may want to unpack this with you in love.
This is not an exercise in weighing ourselves down with guilt. Instead, it is a time to clarify what keeps us from fully knowing what God longs to give.
May your Lent be a time which leads to freedom and great love.
