Ash Wednesday
Many years ago, I visited Sonora Caverns out in Texas. During one part of the tour, we were far underground and the cave guide turned off all the lights. Immediately a blackness that was so complete it nearly had weight to it surrounded us. I couldn’t remember what our surroundings were. Were there stairs behind me? A rail? A shelf of rock? Or was all that in front of us? I could hear my friend nearby, but I was so disoriented that I’d forgotten where she was standing. I put out my hands, only to find that her hands were outstretched too, and we grabbed onto each other and stood in the darkness, waiting for the light.
I think Lent is like that—standing in darkness, being in darkness, breathing it in … while holding on to the people around us, waiting for the light, together. Lent is forty days of descending deeper and deeper into that darkness; a darkness that comes to us most deeply at the very end, when we relive a time when Christ is gone from the world.
Today, the prophet Joel speaks to us of the first blast of the trumpet that announces to us the day of the Lord, the time of darkness and judgment, the Lord and the hosts of heaven, coming down from the mountains. Yet even now, says the Lord, return. Repent, come back. Even now, I am ready to embrace you when you come back to me.
Lent is a time for us to consider what the practice of repentance is for us. It will look different for each individual, but it must be done as a community. Why? Why can’t we do it alone? Surely we know our own sins better than anyone around us. Why can’t we make a confession to God on our own? Do we need another set of ears to hear us, voices other than our own speaking into the darkness?
Yes. We do. If we consider that this is a time to confront the brokenness of the world, and the part we have all played in that brokenness, then how else could we bear it? How could we bear to reach out in the dark and find that our hands touch only empty space? Our community saves us from drowning in despair or self-hatred. It saves us from the arrogance of rationalizing our sins into nothingness and insisting that we alone are living in light.
And it saves us from the arrogance of practicing a special piety, one different or better or more holy than our neighbor’s. If someone makes a spectacle out of their piety, the piety then becomes more important than God, and that is another reason why our gathering together for worship is so central. Jesus tells us in the Gospels that when we pray, when we fast, and when we give alms, we are not to draw attention to ourselves. Worship isn’t about glorifying ourselves, but about glorifying God and acting as true lovers of God’s creation. Don’t pray as the hypocrites do. Don’t pray only so that everyone else can see how holy you are.
Christ isn’t telling us to pray outside of a community, though—Christ drew the community of disciples to him at the beginning of his ministry in preparation for the time when he would no longer be there to lead them. Christ brings us together not because he needs us, but because we need each other.
The Lenten season is a primary opportunity for our own discipleship formation, and while our formation practice is always interwoven with our individual spiritual practices, it begins and ends in community. Lent begins with the prophet Joel and the sounding of the trumpet, calling us together. Ash Wednesday’s Gospel ends with Christ’s caution NOT to sound the trumpet for ourselves alone.
As we stand together in the darkness of Lent, reach out your hands. You will find each other—and in the community you find in each other, you will surely find Christ.
Meditation by the Reverend Canon Susanna Cates
Canon for Formation and Vocation
Diocese of New Jersey
