Ash Wednesday Meditation
“Behold, something greater than Jonah is here”
The Penitential Service for Use on Ash Wednesday and at Other Times, found in the Canadian BCP (p. 611ff.) calls us “in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditation upon God’s holy Word.” Locating the disciplines of Lent within the tradition of the Church and in its relation to Scripture, it provides a clear and concise explanation for the meaning of Lent. It is a challenge, to be sure.
Lent, in a way, concentrates the Christian journey of Faith into the span of forty days, forty days of a certain kind of focus and rigour, a focus and rigour that by definition belongs to the essence of the Christian Faith. We participate in nothing less than the Passion of Christ. And that is nothing less than the pageant of human redemption.
One of the prayers of the Penitential Service recalls The Book of Jonah, the story of the most reluctant prophet, no, let’s be clearer, the most recalcitrant prophet of all times! God says, ‘go to Nineveh,’ and Jonah jumps on a boat heading to Tarshish, trying to get as far away from God as possible and as far away from Nineveh, as well. Utter folly of course, as The Book of Jonah is at pains to teach us. What kind of God would God be, after all, if you could run and hide from him? Adam and Eve already tried that trick in the Garden of Eden, having hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. “Where art thou?” God asked, knowing full well where they were but highlighting their sin and mistake. Nothing can be hidden from the sight of God. Our attempt to do so only proves our sin. Such is our predicament.
