tim@resuscitationblog.com

I turned 66 years old in February. This year marked the first time I participated in an Ash Wednesday observance. My Facebook was been filled with many quotes and thoughts for that day. My favorite came from my friend, Father Kenneth Tanner of Holy Redeemer Church in Rochester, Michigan. He wrote,

“Ash Wednesday is not a day to manufacture guilt. It’s a day to recognize our brokenness, frailty and trust in God’s love. It’s a day to freely come before God and declare, ‘I am human, I am dust and you still love me.”

And you still love me! This is a day of hope. Not a wrong headed hope that perhaps we will experience the love God has for us someday, but the certain acknowledgment we have been and will always be loved by our God even as they love one another. This God does not condemn humanness, rather is redeeming it moment by moment. Jesus desires for us to be where He is, eternally in the embrace of our loving Father.

My thoughts were drawn to the parable of the prodigal sons in Luke’s Gospel earlier today as I was meditating on this great love. Throughout this teaching the Father never ceases to love His sons. He waited in anguish for the return of the younger one who had squandered all he had been given. The interesting thing to me is how the Father didn’t deliver what each son hoped He would. For the younger one, his hope was to be taken care of as a servant in his Father’s household. His Father would have none of it, “You are my son, I thought you were dead! We will all celebrate you in the center of my love.” He received much, much more than he had hoped for.

“I am human, I am dust and you still love me!”

The older brother has a different story altogether. He was angry with the dust covered brother…and also with the Father! His hope was to have the boy sent packing. He doesn’t deserve the love of his Father. He also hoped the Father would show him some special attention for bringing this to His attention. His hopes were dashed, his father could only love and lavish grace upon the broken son. That’s how I was feeling today…lavished by grace because of the love of my Father. Wearing the dust on my forehead, the broken son, yet bearing in my soul the deep love of our God, Who is 3 in 1, Father, Son and Spirit.

Maybe it’s a good thing to experience Ash Wednesday for the first time as an aging saint. For many years I behaved as the older son, feeling entitled and speaking judgment on those whom I felt were undeserving of the great love of the Father. I understand more clearly about this great love than I ever have before. Today I bear the mark of broken humanity on my own forehead and right palm. I am the younger son, hoping for a meager subsistence yet receiving a deluge of love and grace from the Father.

“I am human, I am dust and you still love me!”

Pastor Tim