From fear: Hope

A Reflection for Ash Wednesday

For 1500 years, Christians have heard these words spoken over them as the sign is made: “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.”  Ash Wednesday puts us in context – as human beings, frail and faulty. But it traces over the sign of the cross made at our baptism – which says, “Beloved, child of God.”  It says both, “Your life is fleeting- and you will die,” and also, “You are part of a much bigger story – both the Christian story, and the story of the love of God without end.” And so for a few moments we see on our very faces and on each other the paradox of our life – both our temporary identity, and also our permanent one.

Our Lenten symbol this year- hope infinity.
Here on bracelets

FROM FEAR: HOPE

All around us, there are plenty of reasons to be afraid: Coronavirus, government and politics, the Climate Crisis, the stock market, our own aging bodies and fading minds, that outstanding test result or bill, the looming deadline, the relationship that feels so tenuous, our failure to be who we want to be, our worries for our kids, or our parents.

Fear paralyzes us.  

It is loud, and looming, and we give it the mic because it’s demanding and authoritative.

Fear make hope seem shallow and silly and ungrounded.  We start to hope and immediately fear roars up behind us, listing all the things that could go wrong.

But hope is stronger than fear. 

Fear is finite – it is temporary and temporal – it comes from the stories we tell ourselves about what might happen. We imagine bad things, we dread loss, we see what’s coming and believe it will overwhelm and defeat us. 

But Hope is infinite – it comes from outside us, reaches from before us and stretches beyond us. Hope is when we exist inside the promise from the Divine about a future we can’t create.  It is grounded in reality, both the real reality that we all belong to God and we all belong to each other no matter what, but also the reality of whatever we are living in and experiencing right now. 

So to get to hope we need to embrace the experiences we are in – even the fear. We need to be willing to look at our sin – which is just a fancy word for our disconnection from God and each other in all the many ways that plays out. We need to tell the truth about the brokenness and even evil, inside us and around us. 

Hope is always about wrongs being made right.  So we need to look wrong in the face and call it wrong.  Lent invites us to do that.

We notice at our own brokenness and the brokenness in the world around us.  We let ourselves feel it and grieve it, and we say boldly, Things are not as they should be! because we know there is more.  Hope is knowing it could be different, it should be different, it will be different.  

Jesus came into all of it-  the fear of it too, his temptation in the wilderness, his terrible grief at the loss of his friend Lazarus,  his all-consuming dread in the garden; Jesus did not back down from the fear. Because he was without sin, which is to say, he was completely connected to God and each other- he could go into the fear and grief and loss and stay connected to God – he could reach through the fear to the hope.  

We are the Body of Christ.  We are the people of hope.  And so we are people who do not cower from fear. We let God pull us through the finite fear to the hope that is infinite.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord remains. 
One day, despite all we see and hear and feel, love triumphs, life prevails. 
Peace will reign.  Justice will rule. The weak will be made strong.  All that has been lost will be restored. This is God’s promise.  The love of God is "vast, unmeasured, boundless, free."  This is our hope. 

This Lent we are choosing to face our fear, trusting God to meet us there with infinite hope.  

From Fear: Hope.

Dust of the earth, finite creatures of fear/ Children of the Divine, bearers of infinite Hope, come and receive the ashes.