March 7, 2025
Someone asked me recently where I am finding hope these days. My immediate thoughts were pretty generic, even to my own ears. The sunshine we've had lately. Daylight saving time approaching. The turkeys on Dodd Road. Those each do bring me joy, but is that really where I'm finding hope right now? I found myself thinking about the question for the next few days.
The truth is, this is a difficult time in our common life. The systems we count on to hold steady are not very steady at the moment, and some of the safety nets we count on have some rather large holes in them. If not you yourself, then someone you love is probably hurting or at least pretty worried right now. The division is eating away at us. Cries for decency feel like shouting into the wind. I can’t blame anyone who is struggling to find hope at the moment. And yet, in pondering this question, I realized I really do hold hope...
On Ash Wednesday we stand before God and acknowledge that we are people who make mistakes, sometimes big ones, over and over again. We acknowledge that we fall short of the teachings of Jesus, sometimes in big ways, over and over again. We acknowledge that we're all broken in some way, we’re all in need of forgiveness for the things we have done and the things we have left undone.
And if that weren’t enough, on Ash Wednesday we say aloud the honest truth that the rest of society tries to ignore, distract from, and forget: We are dust and to dust we shall return. We are mortal beings and each of our lives will end one day. But as followers of Jesus, we believe life and death are both of God, and both are holy. On Ash Wednesday we dare to speak that truth – we wear it, in fact, right on our foreheads.
In ashes, we remember that we are loved. In looking honestly at our own faults and failings, we are invited to encounter that love more deeply. In ashes, we remember we belong to God. In the acceptance of our mortality, we proclaim that this belonging doesn't end when we die. And as we begin to walk with Jesus through Lent once again, we seek, once again, to be people who live in this kind of love and this kind of peace – and then reflect that to the world.
And that is where I find hope right now. In claiming the burned remnants of something destroyed as a symbol of cleansing and renewal. I find hope in the knowledge that even as we walk with Jesus through the desert of Lent, the heartbreak of Holy Week and the pain of Good Friday, we know Easter morning will come, and Love will rise from the ashes. I find hope in proclaiming defiantly to a world that likes to linger in the destruction, that we won't linger there with them.
Love will always win, every time. If Love hasn't emerged triumphant yet, it's not the end of the story. This is the essence of our faith. It is where I find my hope. My prayer for you this week is to be able to hold this hope, too. Remember that you are love, and to Love you shall return.