When I was growing up, kids at my school would randomly have smudged crosses on their foreheads every spring. I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I knew they were Catholics. My little Baptist self looked down upon them for expressing their faith in a way different than I understood.
I don't know when things changed, but in recent years, I've been aching to experience the physicality of Ash Wednesday (and other traditions that are a part of the church liturgical year). Turns out I've inadvertently joined a church that feels the same! As a non-denominational church, TFC has embraced this lovely hybridization of faith practices. I have been surprised at how comfortable I feel in a church so unlike anything I've attended. But then I realized something.
When I went to Senegal with a team a couple Novembers ago, I was asked to plan a Sunday service. I put in hymns and praise songs, creedal statements and responsive readings, messages and personal testimonies. I planned a service that looks exactly like TFC. No wonder I feel like I stumbled into my heart by finding this church.
Anyway. I know most people who read this don't participate in the Lenten season, and especially don't do Ash Wednesday. Here is my explanation for why I love it, in hopes that someone else might see the beauty.
For one thing, you're supposed to wear black on Ash Wednesday. I didn't know that, so I walked in wearing a floral shirt, one of maybe ten who were new to the holiday. Ash Wednesday is all about being confronted with God's demand for our holiness, and our confession that we are unable to meet His standards. We publicly confessed our sins by reciting Psalm 51, and we spent time in silent prayer confessing specific sins to God. Then the elders stood at the front of the church, and we went forward. Todd marked me with ash (my sin) in the shape of a cross (my salvation) and said, "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."
Just as Psalm 51 brings us low in acknowledgment of our sins, then lifts us up in remembrance of God's great mercy and loyal love, so our service ended with the Lord's Supper, a consistent picture of God's great mercy and loyal love. We sang together, we were dismissed, and we all stood around and talked as a family bound by the ashen crosses emblazoned on our foreheads.
I love symbolism. I think there is such power in remembrance and in repetition. As I stood thinking of the sin I will try to eradicate during Lent and the good thing I will try to pick up during Lent, I crumbled a little inside. I knew I would fail. If not during Lent, then almost assuredly immediately after. I know my sins live on, and my good intentions go undone. But then I thought, "Ash Wednesday will come again. In a year, I will be reminded of everything once more. I can start anew next year, and the next."
That's liturgy. It's the constant reminder of promises that so easily get forgotten, and the constant assurance that sanctification is a process.
For a better description of why Lent is so great, try Inexhaustible Significance.
For ideas on what to do for Lent, try Rachel Held Evans.
"There is such power in remembrance and in repetition."
ReplyDeleteYes! This is why I love liturgy. The same things that were true last year and last week are true this year and this week and will be true next year and next week. People and places and situations change; God is faithful.
I love Ash Wednesday! And I love liturgy (as long as it's mixed with spontaneity/an appreciation for the new--I think both are important and biblical). Lent and Advent are awesome times of the year.
ReplyDeleteI visited a church once, and their bulletin had a quote on it that was the most beautiful explanation of liturgy I've ever heard. Of course, I threw the bulletin away and have since forgotten the wording of the quote. But the basic idea was that liturgy provides a solid ground, a constant refuge we can return to when our faith feels rocky in the storms of life. I really like that idea. I miss being at a more liturgical church because of that.