Inspire

I remember well the Ash Wednesday Adelaide Hills bushfire disasters of my childhood.  Ever since, fire and ash have been synonymous in my mind with Ash Wednesday.  It’s therefore a little confusing that Ash Wednesday this year – observed today, 2 March 2022 – is full of news regarding the devasting floods in Queensland and NSW.

But that’s just it! Ash Wednesday might be coupled with natural disasters in my mind, yet it really is about a personal disaster for each of us.  Ash Wednesday is named for a poignant ceremony where Christians make the sign of the cross on their foreheads with ashes.  The ashes remind us, as St Paul puts it in Romans 6:23a, that ‘the wages of sin is death’.  That’s total disaster for us.  

Yet that’s not the end of it. ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 3:23).  Even as we apply those ashes and embrace our own mortality, we are reminded death is not the end of our story.  Easter is coming.  Christ’s loving death for us on Good Friday put our sin to death.  And in his new resurrected life of Easter Sunday, we are given his deep lasting life.  That’s the complete opposite of disaster as we journey through Lent’s 40 days to Jesus’ cross and open grave.

Thank you Jesus for overcoming our disaster of sin.  Teach us to keep believing in you.  Use your gift of community to bring recovery and relief to the people of Queensland.  Amen.

By Pastor Matthew Bishop