Ash Wednesday

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 (ASH WEDNESDAY)  

Joel 2:1-17

Today for many in the Christian Community , we  begin a time  of  Lent, a time of 40 days  set aside to "lengthen" or stretch ourselves  spiritually,  and also  as an opportunity to ponder our Lord's journey leading to a date with a Cross.  The concept of a time to renew  or  repent, hearkens back to the times of Joel and other prophets who sensed God moving them to gather their peoples to change their ways, and in so doing to  move more in keeping with God's dream of what the world might be, a place of love and compassion, a just place.

Initially Joel in today's passage  sees God, the Lord of hosts, approaching amid a day of darkness and cloud, with the people waiting in fear. Joel's vision of God up to this point was one of God , a mighty ruler, set apart from his people. but by verse 12, the message  conveyed by Joel from God, sees a new side of God being revealed; "return to me with all your heart..." Gather  all the people, and let the priests weep and in essence say " Spare your people,and let it be said that these people do know who their God is! " 

Going beyond today's reading, in Joel we read that  God's response is one of compassion and promise, becoming  a gradual revelation of who God really is . For many this awareness climaxes centuries later in the person of Jesus, and his journey among  us: God who walked among us.

Ash Wednesday in a sense is about beginning  a Journey moving from a time of Ashes, repenting, to a time, in 40 days  of waving Palms, a time of celebration of a King on a donkey moving through a gate into the events of Holy Week. I hope that this Lent will be for you  such a renewal time between you and God!

-The Ven. Ken Cardwell