Last Wednesday we held our Ash Wednesday service to start off Lent, a period of repentance. In addition to Communion, Pastor Art smudged a cross on our foreheads using ashes, which traditionally come from burning the palms from last year’s Palm Sunday service. The ashen cross is an external symbol of repentance.

Ash Wednesday services are generally solemn and somber, but last week’s was especially somber. At the beginning of the service Pastor Art announced that 17 people had died in a shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Ashes have been associated with grief since ancient days, as we learn in Chapter 4 of Esther. When Mordecai heard about Haman’s plan to destroy the Jews that he mourned by (verse 1) “putting on sackcloth and ashes” and that many among the Jews (verse 3) “lay in sackcloth and ashes”. I am sure we all felt grief for those victims and their families; our ashen forehead crosses, in addition to being a symbol of repentance, became a symbol of our grief.

Thursday Paulette pointed out a very poignant photograph that I later found on the NBC News website. I saw a picture that will stay with me forever. It was a picture of one woman embracing another; the caption said it was of parents awaiting news about their children. One of the women was facing the camera with her emotion filled face showing fear about the fate of her child, concern for her friend, and grief for those who had died. On her forehead was an ashen cross.

It is hard for us to face tragedies, especially like those of Parkland. Sometimes they test our faith and make us question God. One thing that helps is our knowledge that God loves me and YOU unconditionally.

Jim