How was your Ash Wednesday?

 

 

That’s not a question you will normally hear.  It’s not like “How was your Christmas?” – which everybody celebrates whether they are secular or Christian.  Many may not even take note of Ash Wednesday until reminded when seeing a random person with a smudge on their forehead – “oh yeah, it’s the beginning of Lent”.  Ash Wednesday was yesterday.

The spirit of Ash Wednesday is quiet and solemn. Lent does not have an auspicious beginning – it is to remember that we will all someday return to the earth as dirt or ashes – a reminder of our vulnerability and mortality. 

My day began with an early appointment to get a root canal. The procedure was not overly stressful – until the endodontist said, “Oh Oh - there’s another canal in there – normally a tooth has two and these were treated according to plan, but to find the third (there’s a 1% chance of a tooth having a third) took more grinding and digging around without success.  Don’t worry, he said, there’s another way to get to it, meaning on another day for surgery from the other end with “just a little incision of the gum” – only another $1,000.  

When I got home and started setting out breakfast Judy said “Ash Wednesday is a FAST day” – oh yeah, now I remember.  Lent sort of creeps up on us.  The three disciplines of Lent are Fasting, Prayer, and Alms giving.  I had given some thought to what would be my fast this year – abstention from desserts. 

The thing that went through my mind and prayers throughout the day was taking place in Florida.  But it started for our granddaughter, Leslie and her husband Fil, very early in the morning in Chicago.  They were flying to Florida for a funeral and would come back the same night.  Here’s the story:

Fil comes from a Russian Jewish family; a very large and complicated extended family who mostly settled in Chicago in the ‘90s.  Some of the relatives had migrated to Florida and an unconceivable tragedy struck that family last week.  Larisa, related through marriage to Fil’s family, lived in a condo in Fort Lauderdale with her son Ben, age 18, and daughter Eve, in her early twenties.  An ex-boyfriend, likely estranged and unimaginably angry, came to that apartment last Tuesday and shot Larisa and Ben, killing them both. Eve was not at home.  This killer then drove over two hours to Sarasota where Larisa’s brother, mother and stepfather lived and went into their house, killing them plus a good neighbor who was just checking on them when he heard gun shots.  The shooter then took his own life. 

Leslie and Fil grieved, cried, hugged and consoled many at the funeral for all five of the family yesterday.  Leslie said it was beautiful and necessary to come together.  My prayers were with them from afar.

Last night at our Ash Wednesday worship Pastor Brad said that in this service we were reminded forcefully of the words of the funeral/burial committal service at the death of a loved one: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.  The closest parallel in Jewish liturgy is the solemn “Day of Atonement”; waiting to receive, experience and give forgiveness. Ashes are a rich symbol; rooted in ancient customs and practices of grief and sorrow, cleansing and renewal – a symbol of God’s judgement upon sin, a sign of our human frailty and mortality, our humiliations and broken condition, and our need and repentance.

As a Christian I was reminded of the God’s forgiveness daily as we heard it announced at the Lord’s table last night after we received the imposition of ashes.  As these Jewish brothers and sisters grieve and experience deep lamentations and in their own struggles with forgiveness and trying to make some sense of this tragedy, I pray God’s all-encompassing love will surround them now, and in the days to come. 

This was another mass shooting in America, one that was only covered in the local news.  We would not have known about it except for the family connection.  But that horrendous tragedy will remain etched in the minds of many in the extended Velgach family for generations.  Lord, have mercy.