What Lent is about
Channel: St. Paul's Burlingame
Date: 20/02/2021

Transcript: Hello and welcome to St. Paul’s. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Season of Lent. 

Traditionally, the ashes we place on our foreheads come from burnt palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, the dramatic beginning of Jesus’ journey to the cross.

Today we burn palm crosses from years past.

Draw near to the flames. Draw near to God’s invitation of transformation and renewal. 

Lent is more that a season to improve ourselves. Lent is a season of preparation in order to bring forth new life. The transformation promised in Lent looks toward a more graceful kind of renewal. Let the burning of the past: past desires, past situations, past relationships transform into ash. 

May we grow more radically aware and accept ourselves, our realities, our failings, and our joys/ In these ashes, where things that were once beautiful, are now reduced to dust, to the most basic elements.

And we know and trust that our God uses those parts in our natural surroundings and in us as raw material to create healing and love.

The parts that seem broken, are actually soil in which new life grows. And so it is the old dust and seed and new dirt cooperate to bring about new growth, transformed growth.

And as the old palms, burnt down, continue to nourish the little seed in the darkness, co-mingling with newer soil. So it is with us, as we anticipate the year anniversary of the original lockdown order and everything that has felt limiting and restrictive...let us welcome the silver linings and the terrible darkness of death, destruction, and isolation as we reflect back on the past 11 months. 

May the past inform our present so that our future together as God’s children may be transforming for us and our communities.