Ash Wednesday
Wednesday 14th February 2018
Ash Wednesday
2 Cor. 5. 20b- 6.10 – Suffering of an apostle
John 8. 1-11 – adultery and forgiveness
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
A happy and blessed Ash Wednesday one and all! … and a very happy St Valentine’s Day!
It’s not that often that these two manage to collide and be celebrated on the same day, but it’s not so strange a mix as you might at first think, because they both celebrate love: God’s love for us and romantic love, respectively.
Valentine is a bit of a mystery. To begin with, there were at least two saints called Valentine (maybe more!) and both met a sticky end for their faith. Nobody is quite sure how this saint came to be associated with romantic love. Some say it was because there was a pagan festival of Lupercalia at this time of year. Young men and women would draw names out of a hat and pair up for the period of the festival. Another suggestion blames Geoffrey Chaucer for writing about the legend that this was the day when the birds choose their mate.
Undoubtedly, romantic love is one of God’s great gifts to humankind. But like any good thing, romantic love can be misused, such as when someone uses romance to lure away the partner of someone else. But Jesus in the Gospel reading warns us against judging and condemning other people for their sins, because all of us have done selfish things at some time or another.
But how moving to compare God’s passionate love for you and me with the devoted love between two human lovers. God will never force us, but he woos us and hopes that we will respond to his love. If we fail to do so and ignore him, God is wounded, just as much as a human lover who finds that their feelings are unrequited.
Jesus on the cross shows us that God’s love for us is marked by willing self-sacrifice, just as human love should be. But the agony of the cross also reveals how deeply God suffers when we ignore him, and fail to return his generous love. It is easy to feel overburdened by guilt when we contemplate the extent of God’s suffering on our behalf, but God does not want our lives to be wrecked by an endless burden of guilt, and so he sent his Son to assure us that as soon as we say sorry, we are forgiven.
Just like the woman in the story, we are told, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” But while God always holds out to us the promise and gift of forgiveness, it is also possible to misuse this gift. If we say we are sorry, but do not really mean it, we are taking advantage of God’s indulgence – God’s good nature. So we need Ash Wednesday, when we can make a fuss of our penitence (our embarrassment and shame) to convince both God and ourselves that it is sincere, and we really mean it. Then we can forget our wrongdoing, safe in the knowledge that God has forgotten it too.
As I saw on a cartoon published this week of mock Valentine’s Day cards… Remember you are dust – but awfully loveable dust! Ash Wednesday reminds us that we all suffer from a terminal condition – called life. But when that life is done, God’s love still surrounds and protects us. Amen