Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday 2015

Today is a new beginning.

Not only the beginning of Lent. 

Today can be a new beginning for each one of us.

If we are willing to return to the beginning,

willing to turn and remember from where we come---dust.

The dust into which our Almighty Creator God blew the breath which restores, the wind which renews, the spirit which creates—God’s very own breath turning dust into life.

Today can be our new beginning

if we are willing to acknowledge that we are not our own.

We are not our own. We are God’s.  We owe our every breath to God.

All that we are, all that we have, comes from God.

Who we are is based on whose we are---signed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.

Like Stevie Wonder sings: Signed, sealed, delivered….I’m yours.

Today’s cross of ashes on our foreheads points to the cross that marked us in Baptism---our God tattoo that is embedded in our hearts and minds---declaring us to be not our own, but God’s.

If we choose, today we can turn and re-turn to our Creator; we can make ourselves available to the incredible power and love of God—not simply in a “I’m spiritual” manner, but in the more gritty, real, everyday display of a commitment to regular worship, daily prayer, fasting and giving of our very selves.  This is the way of Jesus—this everyday living of prayer, healing, forgiveness, mercy, Word, service and messy community that Jesus calls us to live, to walk, to come and follow Him. 

Today is a fresh start.  Another chance to move closer to the Divine who so completely desires an intimate and loving relationship with us.  Today is a day of new beginning.

Or it could be just another Wednesday, like every other Wednesday.

God leaves that choice in your hand.