Lenten Devotional - Ash Wednesday

Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

“Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2:12-13)

  Sometimes it seems like there is no hope. When we read of the events of the Bible, we are told of the impact of plagues within the lives of the people. In the prophet Joel, this time it is a plague of locusts. Connected with their failures as a people of God, it signified what was to come in that “day of the Lord.” It can all seem so distant, so foreign to our own world, but “locusts” come in many forms. We live with our own “plagues” that have resulted from our individual and collective failures. Then, and now, it may seem like there is no hope.

  Yet, in the midst of even the most dire circumstances, they (and we) are challenged to do what they (we) should have already been doing long before. Sometimes, it takes a season (like Lent) to be reminded to enter “into the light.” During this Lenten journey, we also are challenged to step back and do what we probably should do day in and day out all year long…. pray, fast, weep, mourn, return. With that expectation of returning, there is the promise of a God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Too often, caught up in everyday life, the promise may not always seem relevant.

  But, when we are struggling, the promise seems too good to be true. Surely, in my own inadequacies, in my own failures, God would not be gracious to me. Yet, the promise remains. God has not changed. God still says, “return to me with all your heart.” That God is still gracious, still merciful, still slow to anger and still abounding in love.

  The very act of returning is not a solitary act. We are to join in conversation with each other before and with the one who longs for us to come back. God calls us to return as a people, as the Lord’s community. In fact, the prophet challenged them to gather the people, old and young, in order to call a “solemn assembly.” It is in coming together with others that we pray, we fast, we mourn and we return.

  During this Lenten journey “into the light,” may we come together with others who also know the pain and the problems of our experiences and our world. In this time of plague of our own “locusts,” may we return to find hope in the only place where it is certain, in the presence and power of our God. As we reflect and as we pray, we will be welcomed in our return by the Lord who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Skip Noftzger, Contributor

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