Ash Wednesday :: Morning

 For Lent this year, I thought I would try following the lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) 1962, of the Anglican Church of Canada. That's twice daily readings. To keep myself accountable, I'm going to post the readings and my thoughts about them here, along with the Collect of the Day and maybe the day's Psalm(s).

(I'm back here now because our server went down years ago and it's easier to keep things elsewhere. Someday I'll be able to retrieve the posts from the other location and get them here. Until then, here we go.)

And so, here are the morning's readings and the Collect.

1st Reading: Isaiah 57.15-end

2nd Reading: Mark 2.13-22

Psalms: 6, 143

Collect (p 138)

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The rest of this will be basically stream of consciousness as I go through each piece of scripture in order and then try and synthesize everything. I'm looking at the scripture in my NRSV Study Bible for the translation notes and checking definitions of important words in my Canadian Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.).

Isaiah says that God is with those who are contrite (penitent; sincerely filled with guilt, regret, etc. and desirous of making amends) and humble (not proud; having or showing a low or modest estimate of one's own importance). God gets angry with His people for their wickedness and He punishes them, but He also cares for them when they repent of their wrongdoing.

The passage in Mark includes two important teachings. First, Jesus says He is a physician and that sinners need Him more than those who are not sinners. This is a thing because He was hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees were aghast. But a quick note from the Bible notes: the Pharisees were apparently a reform movement in Judaism who were focused on strict adherence to the law (Deuteronomy etc.), and "sinners" in this context are people who didn't do that--people who weren't following the law at all and were being loud about it.

The other teaching in Mark has to do with fasting. At the time, it was a sign of contrition (there's that word again!) meant to be done at particular times. Here, Jesus is saying that since He was physically with His disciples, they didn't need to fast. Once He was gone, they would fast once more.

Psalm 6 is a prayer for healing. The notes in my Bible talk about death being a condition of separation from God and from the ability to offer worship and praise, so the writer is hoping that God will make them well in order to retain those things. Notes also indicate that it's a "penitential psalm" because the early Christian church saw contrition/penitence in it. Verses 8-10 seem like a sharp right turn as they're about asking God to smite the meanies.

Psalm 143 is another penitential psalm, this because verse 2 is clear that people, including the writer, suck. But overall, this one is basically "I suck, other people suck, but I love God and God is going to save me from the sucky people."

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Lent is traditionally a time of fasting and of penitence in the Church. Contrition and humility are apparently necessary components, and in my experience they are often sorely lacking. False humility is a thing, after all.

In my head, I feel how this all works together but I don't know if I can get the words for it. I'll do my best.

1. Jesus came for the sinners, not for the righteous. I think this has more to do with self-perception than actual states of being; people who think they can do no wrong aren't going to be humble or contrite, after all, while those who recognize their own sinfulness will be both.
2. God will punish wickedness, especially public wickedness done proudly. But if we recognize our sinful state and repent, He will instead comfort us and lift us up out of the mud.
3. This understanding of death, which seems to be of Jewish origin, makes more sense to me than others I've come across. If death is separation from God and absence from worship and praise, then that's something those who love God would want to avoid. And when I think about the language used regarding faith in Christ, this makes even more sense. Think about John 3.16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten son, what whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." (From memory, I have no clue what version that even is.) In Romans 3.21-26, there's a bunch of stuff that pertains to this idea, particularly verse 23: "since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".
4. Fasting is a way to show penitence. In a way, it puts me in mind of penance--something Anglicans don't really do the way the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox do. Deny yourself a pleasure as a sign that you are sorry for your wrongdoing. I have long liked the idea some put forth for Lent, of taking something on (like I'm doing here) and cutting something out. The idea is to increase your discipline/self-control, especially in matters of faith. I may choose to fast one day a week as I have done in the past. I don't like the whole "I'm not going to eat chocolate during Lent" kind of thing because we usually go back to whatever it is after Easter, and sometimes we do it more. I'd rather pick something that will make a difference for me for a long time--something I can do for this short time and then continue doing after Easter. That way the Lenten discipline carries over into the rest of my life, and it has more of an impact overall.

This is as far as I can go right now. I'll be back tonight with the evening readings and psalms. Please feel free to comment your thoughts about what I've written here. I'm interested in what you think!