In the Episcopal Church’s Ash Wednesday liturgy, the priest utters the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” as he or she draws a cross of ashes on your forehead. The ashes are a symbol of mourning thousands of years old and are meant to impress a sense of solemnity and humility. And for the better part of two millennia, Lent has been a time of fasting, personal sacrifice, and longing for the joyful salvation and transformation of Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter.
As I consider the solemnity of Lent this year, I mourn for God’s people and God’s creation and long for the renewal of the environment in which God has placed us. That may sound like liberal hippie talk, but I assure you it is quite conservative, deeply rooted in the Scriptures and historical Christian theology. While some of our environmental challenges are new, our deep connection with the rest of the world is not – it is ancient and merely forgotten, lost along the way by generations who have increasingly come to see our common home primarily as a set of resources to be exploited for economic gain.
This Lent I will be producing a blog post on this topic once a week, culminating in an Easter message in which God makes all things new. I hope that you’ll join me.
No comments:
Post a Comment