Ashes and Dust : Lent as a narrative re-set

 Ash Wednesday turns a corner in the year, from the celebratory relief of Christmas and Epiphany, incarnation and escape and the good news crossing national and cultural boundaries, the songs of Mary and Simeon and Anna full of vision for the triumph of good over evil, for the remaking of all things into a just world of reversal and joyful surprise . . . to the somber reality of how that will happen. We trade in the sparkling lights and festive gifts. Now we enter a 40-day reflection symbolised by ashes and dust. 

(just scrolled back on my phone to find these photos of a brick kiln and the roadside, dust and ashes in Bundi)

Abraham and Job used that phrase, ashes and dust, to mourn their powerlessness. Ashes, the remnant of an offering consumed by fire, destroyed beyond recognition. Dust, the poetic substrate and ultimate state of the carbon-based world of life, including humans. 

Lent asks us to reset our drive to control and produce and succeed.  To reflect that God's method of salvation does not align with our choice narratives. My Bible reading last week was from Mark 9, which pretty clearly lays out this dilemma. Jesus takes his close friends up on a mountain to pray in peace and quiet, and they witness for a brief time a truer vision of who he is, filled with light and speaking with heroes of the faith in another dimension. They even hear the voice of God. They are all in. Ready to stay there for the duration, build shrines. But Jesus says no, and quotes from Isaiah 53, asking them to grapple with that prophecy of a suffering servant. He changes the story from glowing glory, to a rejected and bleeding figure. In the aftermath of seeing a Heavenly power, they resist the path of death. As do we all. They trudge down, begrudgingly, to find a crowd. The disciples have tried to heal a young boy, using power they thought they could wield over an evil spirit that harmed him. Jesus sighs and talks to the parents about belief, fasting, prayer. Lord I believe, help my unbelief, says the father. An honest prayer of struggling faith, followed by the boy appearing dead but standing up when Jesus takes his hand. One quiet healing, personal and draining. But not yet the dramatic victory that the mountaintop seemed to promise.

Me too, I'd like to see Jesus and Elijah and Moses with fire and sword blaze right through Bundibugyo, East and Central Africa, eliminating child hunger and deceptive traps and desperate poverty and selfish curses, like to see everyone so overwhelmed by God's beauty and power all else pales. Frankly the interminable bureaucracy, hourly knocks from people who are sick or hungry or lonely, the students who will miss out on education due to lack of funding, the corrupt processes, the inevitable moving on of people we depend on and care about . . . when you're living at the edge of the fray, it's easy to want a dramatic narrative of visible victory. I'd like to be more comfortable, or more famous, or feel more worthy.

Instead, we need a 40 day pace of dust and ashes, of reality check. The prizes that appeal, the crutches that numb distress or distract from sorrow, none of those are the real goal. A new world is coming, but not by might. Jesus leads us to the cross. To a call to let go of what looks like life, and trust him for what really is life. To hold on through hard, hard days and weeks and years because He's bringing goodness by His own suffering. To stay in the story because the days of Lent and crucifixion end in Easter and resurrection. Life is coming, not in spite of dust and ashes, but because of dust and ashes.

The call to ashes and dust is an invitation to God. To mercy, love, justice, hope, healing. May we spend the next tough weeks of February and March believing that. Our world is dusty and singed and we pray with a kernel of belief,  but needing help for our unbelief. And that's what is promised.

    Some dusted-off pictures of the hope we're heading towards, from this week:

Piper's birthday with her beloved teachers

CSB new class of senior one students arriving .. . . 

Helped by upperclassmen and student leaders to move into the dorms.

Weekly women's bible study transformed to a birthday celebration for Alexis

Our BundiNutrition Administrator Bwampu keeps this huge, important program running to feed hungry children. We were delighted to visit him this morning as his wife delivered their 4th last night. Welcome Anna.

This is real: dust became flesh, a baby willingly entered the burning destruction of ashes to pull us through to life. And so we wait through Lent two thousand years later, still trying to reset our story to grasp such mystery.

IF your'e still here . . . two resources. We have loved the Biola University daily Lent and Advent offerings for years, they combine art, music, poetry, scripture and meditation. 2023 Lent will focus on the Gospel of John, and we are focusing here daily as a team. 

Serge has a great post listing some free resources as well as recommended books for Lent here. 

I also try to keep up with daily lectionary readings, here or what I actually use is the app created by Church House Publishing.