Marked by the Cross of Christ

Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009
2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10

As we begin this holiest season of the church year, Paul reminds us of the very core of our faith—that our God, against all human reason, reaches out to us in reconciliation. God will not let us go. God reaches out again and again, refusing to give up on us. In the ashes today, God once again reaches out and touches us with God’s own surrendered life so that we might be reconciled to God.

The ashes show us that reconciliation is at the very heart of the Christian life; it is what we are called to do above all else—reconciliation with God and with others. The Christians at the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem know this well. They have taken God’s invitation to reconciliation seriously and they have stayed in the land of Jesus’ birth, working for reconciliation with their neighbors. They have become peacemakers, bridge-builders, in the political landscape of the Holy Land. Living under the cross, they have been transformed by God’s reconciliation and have stayed in Bethlehem to be repairers of their broken world.

Because life is so hard in the Palestinian areas, many people have left—there are no jobs, commerce is made almost impossible by the Israeli permit system, educational and medical institutions struggle because Israeli authorities prevent them from getting the equipment and supplies needed for their work.

But many have chosen to remain in Bethlehem. If you look at the web site of the Diyar Consortium, formed by the Lutheran community there, you can see all they are doing to strengthen their community, to “equip the local community to assume a proactive role in shaping their future”—the schools, the Wellness Center, the concerts, the after-school children’s programs. The children's swim class in the photo above is one of the activities of the Wellness Center.

This month they are hosting one of many film festivals. The films name what oppresses them and celebrate efforts to overcome the oppression. The first film in February was “Bethlehem Checkpoint, 4 am,” a 2007 documentary made under the Project "Images for Life" which trains Palestinian refugees in photography and video. The film shows the “Carnal density of the queue, bodies piled up, squeezed, pushed, contrasts with the stillness of the cold metal bars,” as 300 workers queue up at 4:45 am, permits in hand, ready for the guard stations to open at 5 am, so that they can be scrutinized by the guards on their way to their jobs in Israel.

Take a moment to look at the ways they are bringing reconciliation to their community: http://www.annadwa.org/

Reconciliation—how very hard it is for us. Much easier forget the God we have already abandoned; much easier to walk away from the pain of our own broken relationships with God and with others. But reconciliation is what God offers us in Jesus Christ. God does not let go. God does not give up. This is what the ashes tell us.

O God of the ashes, may your mark on our foreheads remind us who we are and lead us to actions of reconciliation and hope. Amen.