Ash Wednesday: Taking Hold of Life

A sermon first preached at Croydon Minster on Ash Wednesday 6th March 2019.

‘Take hold of the life that really is life’ (1 Timothy 6.19)

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The season of Lent is, at its heart, a journey into Easter.

And that means it is a journey into

the mystery of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection:

what is known as the Paschal Mystery.

And that takes us to the very heart of the mystery of faith:

            Christ has died,

            Christ is risen,

            Christ will come again.

The Paschal mystery shapes

            and defines

who we are as Christians.

Created out of dust,

like all humanity,

- of whom Adam is the representative figure -

God’s life, has been breathed

into our nostrils.

This breath,

            in Hebrew nephesh,

is the life breath that animates us

and gives us life

in Adam.

It is the Holy Spirit

breathed into us in the sacraments

            – baptism, Eucharist, confirmation and penance among them –

that gives us life in the New Adam,

Jesus Christ.

As St Paul says,

in a verse of the first letter to the Corinthians,

a verse we know as an ‘Easter Anthem’,

‘In Adam all die: even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ 1 Corinthians 15.22

‘Dust you are and to dust you shall return’.

            Those are words said in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday,

            as the sign of the cross in ash is made on our foreheads.

‘Dust you are and to dust you shall return’.

We are not left in dust and ashes

– ‘turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’ –

but rather in the dust and ashes

of human existence and awareness of mortality,

God’s breath gives life,

as he breathed over the Valley of Bones

            in Ezekiel’s vision

and animated them,

and brought them to life.

We are not left in dust and ashes,

            but given a new and glorious body

            within Christ’s body, the Church.

This is a journey, then, that confronts mortality,

            and faces it down.

Lent takes us from dust and ashes to new life in Christ.

This Lent here at this church we will spend some time in the company of the prophet Jonah.

Jonah is a deeply human character,

and the book of Jonah is a short and whimsical read of his ups and downs.

We might recognise parts,

of ourselves in Jonah.

Jonah is called by, but runs away

            from God.

In that flight

            Jonah is caught up in the storms

                        of life.

Jonah knows what life is like at rock bottom:

            ‘the waters closed in over me;

the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped around my head’. (Jonah 2.5)

But Jonah knows redemption,

            scooped up by the great fish,

            in whose belly he was for three days.

Even after that miracle,

            he experiences bewilderment and anger

            when his own expectations

            and machinations of missionary zeal

            go awry.

In the end he finds shelter from God,

            a bush,

which then withers away

and Jonah is again angry

with God.

There is no neat resolution to Jonah’s story,

            and neither is there to ours.

Yet in the Gospels

Jesus speaks

            of the ‘sign of Jonah’ (Matthew 12.39; 16.4; Luke 11.29-30).

It is that sign that we have an opportunity to explore this Lent.

At risk of giving spoilers… this sign of Jonah

is about the call to repentance and amendment of life;

this sign is about hearing God’s call and claim on our lives;

this sign is about understanding mission

            to be God’s task

            in which we participate

not manufactured by ourselves;

this sign is about knowing how to navigate the depths of our experience;

this sign is about knowing our utter dependence

            on the mercy and grace of God.

St Paul says:

            ‘take hold of the life that really is life’ (1 Timothy 6.19).

The sign of Jonah

points us to God’s capacity

            in Christ

to scoop us up, die with him and be raised with him

in the waters of baptism and new life

so that we can

‘take hold of the life that really is life’

The sign of Jonah points us to a challenge.

The challenge is this

that we do not go through

and then end Lent

in dust and ashes,

like Jonah, grumpy and resentful,

but prepared, expectant and alert

to the purposes of God

            in our lives and in our world.

The Church,

in her great wisdom,

discerns that through

‘self-examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting and self-denial;

and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word’

(Common Worship: Times and Seasons, The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday)

we can rise to this challenge

and come to celebrate Eastertide

by ‘taking hold of the life that really is life’

            in Christ:

our incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Lord,

to whom be all honour, glory, and power

to the ages of ages.

Amen.