February 11, 2021
My dear Doubters of Great Faith,
We are fast approaching the final Sunday of Epiphany, the day we mark Jesus’ “transfiguration” to three of his disciples, the day God reiterates, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” It is a high point in the incarnational process, God’s great journey together with humanity, as God asserts God’s identity in this at once human, and yet most divine gift, Jesus Christ.
“This IS my Son, the Beloved; LISTEN to him!”
We spend Epiphany basking in revelations of the great gift of Christmas, dazzling and resplendent, emerging through waters of baptism, ascending majestic mountain heights. Can we yet fully appreciate the gift that Christmas delivers? Is that possible? What has God done, coming among us, in this most radical of ways?
Deciding what to do with this gift is intimately bound to our thoughts and beliefs about our own journeys, our own selves. How we use what we’ve been entrusted is so intimately tied to what we value, what we hold dear. And so, the placement of Lent as time for our own inward journey is, in fact, the gift of time to do that very work, to consider the things we value and cherish, so that we order (and maybe even re-order) our priorities to be more in keeping with the values and priorities of God.
And that begins with Ash Wednesday, the day we set aside to focus on our own mortality, our physicality in chronological time. “From dust we came, and to dust we shall return,” says much about us, but it says just as much or more about God. And so these markings, these reminders of who and whose we are, are critical, as we begin again this distinct part of the Incarnation/Crucifixion/Resurrection/Ascension narrative.
Even in “Corona-tide,” when we cannot meet in person, I believe it is important that we make that mark, that assertion, again, of who and whose we are, and where we fit into God’s great story. I encourage you to come by the Church office and pick up your own supply of ash so that on Ash Wednesday, you too can participate in the great reminder that we came from God’s creation, we are God’s creation, and we will go back to God’s creation. It may seem silly and childish to “ash” yourself, but it really isn’t. If you think about it, Christians use all sorts of elemental symbols to make the sign of the cross, asserting our identity as Christ-followers. (For example, some use holy water to make the sign of the cross when they enter or leave the nave.)
We were swept up of the elements of creation by God into this thing called life, and we will go back to those very same elements. What are we doing with the time that we have been gifted in between? How are we valuing and prioritizing those great gifts to which we have been entrusted?
But first, the mountaintop…
Yours in faith,
Fr. Christopher+
