A couple of days ago, we attended an Ash Wednesday worship service where we were marked with ashes on our foreheads and told, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.  It marked the beginning of the Lenten Season and our personal spiritual journeys toward the cross.  On Good Friday, we will find ourselves at the foot of the cross.  Only two days later, we will celebrate Easter Sunday and Christ’s resurrection. Reflecting on this, I visualize a phoenix and it seems an appropriate image for this Lenten Season.  A phoenix is a legendary creature which is born from ashes.  It comes from dust and returns to dust, but that is not the end of the story.  That is not the final word.  Phoenixes must die to be reborn.  Legend has it that a phoenix will either burst into flame and turn to ashes, or decompose and turn to ashes (accounts do not agree on the details, but in both they die and become ashes).  Then they are reborn and rise from the ashes into new life.   As Christians, we believe that we, too, must die to be reborn.  In baptism, we die to our old, sinful self and are reborn into God’s family and are a new creation in Christ.  We believe, too, that Christ’s resurrection from the dead, was only the first, and that we, too, will rise into new life with God after physical death.  This Lenten Season, let us put to death any of the practices and habits that are getting in the way of communion with God, and let us see new life rising from those ashes.  Read Colossians 3:1-17, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally!

Annie

Today’s Reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A1-17&version=NRSV

http://katrinabonebrake.deviantart.com/art/Phoenix-Reborn-74658151