A BLESSED ASH WEDNESDAY TO YOU
LENT 2010 “40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS”
DAILY BLOG Week 1
2/17 Ash Wednesday
PSALM 51
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin…
A blessed Ash Wednesday to you.
This Psalm is a treasured expression of the need for God’s forgiveness. We need that. So today we will wear ashes on our foreheads, to remember that some day we will stop living and become dirt. This is the time we have to make my choices. To remember that we are not the Creator, but the dust, picked up lovingly from the earth, that God breathes into to make us live. And how we have been forgiven and offered yet another chance, set free from the body of the past and returned to the present moment, and by God’s amazing grace, we are becoming light.
Think about what this season will bring to you. Think about what you have given up, and will give up, that you may be renewed once again.
A Blessed Ash Wednesday to you all. There is still time to make the 7 pm service in the Chapel….
I looked on the Web, The significance of 40 in the Bible. There were several sites. One said a 40-something time period, whether days, months, or years is always a period of testing, trial, probation, or chastisement (but not judgment) and ends with a period of restoration, revival or renewal. There are at lease ten instances in the Bible where 40 occurs.
Flies, maggats, decomposition, . . . Really puts our short time here in perspective. Make your time here mean something.
40. If I remember right it is not meant in the Bible as an actual number, but as a reference to a long period of time.I believe that time is different now than it was theb so it can’t be taken as a literal 40 nights. We do 40 most likely because that is what translated to us through thr years, but that is all IMO.