Wednesday, February 10, 2016 - Ash Wednesday
worship: noon & 7
pm
Reading: Joel 2:1-2,
12-17
Joel 2:13 "Return to the Lord, your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love."
We have put away the word
"Alleluia" for the season of Lent. The children of the parish have
taken the banner with that word on it and hidden it somewhere in the church.
They will find it and resurrect it for us before the Vigil of Easter. One of the texts we sing during Lent in place
of the "Alleluia" before the Gospel reading is the passage from Joel
2:13: “Return to the Lord your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
Repentance, turn, return – in Hebrew, all these words share a common
root: teshuvah, lashuv, shuvah. In fact, the forty-day penitential period
preceding Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, is called Teshuvah. Lent
is an opportunity to examine, to reflect, and to turn – to turn away
from false gods (power, popularity, success?), to turn around and leave behind
those things that enslave us (self-doubt, misconceptions, bitterness?) and to return
to the arms of a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love.
- Veil crosses with deep
purple cloth or unbleached muslin, a fast for the eyes.
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