human being being human

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

human being being human

Our Lenten teaching series is entitled "human being being human" as we centre our thoughts this season on the nature of human existence, living in the physical bodies which we understand are from dust and will return to dust. What is the nature of human life in these vessels of clay and how do we relate our day to day material lives with the spiritual realities of God and the future transformation of these bodies?

Ash Wednesday. "You are dust and to dust you shall return" was the declaration the first Adam heard after the great Fall. On Ash Wednesday we begin the journey of Lent, a season of humility and repentance. We remember indeed that we are dust and acknowledge that to dust we are bound to return. We meditate on the meanness of dust, its lowliness and lack of beauty. And know that we are such. The practice of marking the forehead with ashes, smudged in the form of a cross, begun in the seventh century, in the Catholic, Anglican and many other Protestant churches reminds us of our mortality, making the hope of Easter and resurrection all the more critical. In earlier days the imposition of ashes was part of an ecclesiastical penitential ritual for people who had been expelled from the church for serious sin -whereby they could make a public sign of their repentance. They then undertook acts of penance throughout Lent and were formally restored to the church community at Easter.

What will be your path through Lent? A sober remembering that we are mortal? A grieving period concerning the weakness of "human flesh"? A season of repentance over sinful ways? A season of penance? A season of simplicity and reformed spiritual disciplines? Let's walk and talk together on this Coracle Journey.