Ash Wednesday, Year A: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Episcopal Church of our Saviour
February 26, 2020
Jonathan Hanneman
“We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – II Corinthians 5:20b-21
Today we mark the beginning of Lent, the season of the Church Year dedicated to repentance and renewal. We use this time to prepare ourselves for death and crucifixion—not only that of Jesus Christ, but also our own. For a little over seven weeks, we’ll walk this path toward Good Friday together with all the communion of the saints, joining our Savior on his final trek to Jerusalem, where he will experience the same betrayal and loss that so often mark our own lives. We walk with him toward our own execution, hoping against all hope in God’s promise of resurrection, yet fully aware of the suffering we must endure to find our way to glory.
We take this time to examine ourselves, to consider our own lives and our faithfulness to our calling as followers of Christ. We begin by removing the logs in our own eyes, those sins, worries, and failures that too frequently hold us in their sway. And as a people often blind to our own faults, we search out the company of those who will, in love, confront us with what they see in us. Through their fellowship and encouragement, we work toward change. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Guide, we repent: we reconsider, and we turn away from those things that have bound us to the way of death, making amendment of life. Then we will look again, and again, and again, so we may be found pure and loving, true reflections of our Messiah and genuine children of our merciful and generous God.
But Lent is not simply a time to gaze at our own need to change or to obsess about our failures. Although it’s a time for examination, it is not a time for self-absorption. Nor is it a time for despair. Instead, we use it as an opportunity to grow, to return to forgotten practices of love and to creatively initiate new ones.
This season, whenever we’re confronted with our own sins and weaknesses—of which we all have many!—may we remember that sin is never simply an individual matter. Sin is not merely a disruption of fellowship between God and the believer. Sin is always communal: in all of its forms, behind all of its many faces, it has and will continue to affect those around us. The Great Commandment[1], although presented in two parts, is truly one: we cannot love our God without loving our neighbor, nor can we ignore our neighbor’s cries or needs without ignoring the God who created both them and us. The Hebrew prophets show us that to ignore someone is to despise them[2]. To be despiteful is simply to harbor hatred by another name, and no one can walk in love while willingly offering a home to hate.
As we make our own pilgrimage through Lent this year, may we, through the love of God and power of the Spirit, take those actions necessary not only to amend our own faults and weaknesses but to grow in awareness of the world’s many needs and then respond in love to those we see around us. May we not simply be hearers of our Savior’s Word, as so many of us are prone to be, but—especially in this season—may we take upon us the mantle and humility of Christ. May we become doers of his Word.
“We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
[1] Matthew 22:34-30
[2] Malachi 1:6-14