One of the marvelous things about our Book of Common Prayer is the richness of its language, the language that can support us in our prayer and put words around the feelings we may have difficulty articulating. It also contains surprises, just as scripture and the other things we read from time to time over the years continue to surprise us. I don’t mean the surprises that come when we read something for the first time and are struck by its beauty or its aptness to our situation. I mean the surprises that happen when we see something in a new way. On Ash Wednesday, a phrase from one of our prayers kept leaping out at me. Each time I read it, I felt a shock, and I wondered if I had ever really heard the words before.
The words came at the end of the declaration of absolution that follows the Litany of Penitence, at the middle of page 269. You may remember that the priest stands at the end of the litany and declares to God’s people the absolution and remission of our sins. Then the priest prays for true repentance for us all and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy.
Each time I read that phrase – the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy – I was stunned by the idea that that might actually happen. Most of the time, our confession contains words to the effect that we know all too well that the next sin is just around the corner, that the words of absolution are almost a reset button, putting us back in order for a few hours or minutes.
But this prayer says that with true repentance and the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the rest of our lives – despite our sinfulness – the rest of our lives hereafter may be pure and holy.
While I was mulling that over, I remembered today’s readings – in particular the story from the Hebrew scripture. The flood waters have receded, and God is making covenant with Noah. God says: “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God says “Never again.” No matter what we do, no matter how sinful we are, no matter how we separate ourselves from God, God makes covenant that never again will God destroy the earth. We are God’s creation, no matter what we do, and God chooses to keep covenant with us.
God can say “Never again,” and we can trust in those words. We say, “Never again. I’ll never do that again,” and even as we say it, meaning it from the depths of our hearts, we know there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be saying those words again very soon. So we enter this season of penitence and preparation with a clear understanding of our own shortcomings, and we find in the very first day – with the ashes still fresh on our foreheads – once again we find the gift of God’s love for us. We know deep in our hearts that nothing we ever do will make us pure and holy. The gift – the very good news – is that our purity and holiness doesn’t depend on us and our actions. They are gifts from God – gifts of God’s grace – freely given and offered to us.
It sometimes seems that our temptations – our time in the wilderness – last much longer than 40 days. The good news is that God’s Holy Spirit always goes with us – is always with us on our journey. The good news is that God’s love is powerful enough to bring us into new creation. The good news is that God’s never-ending, overflowing, extravagantly and ridiculously abundant love is powerful enough to give us new life.
Thanks be to God.