We're all made of stars - thanks Moby

Ash Wednesday was a surprising day this year, as we worked out how to be faithful and safe in level 2. In this year with reminders of our mortality constantly nagging away we were invited to wear the mark of the ash – a reminder that from dust we come, and to dust we shall return. I wonder what that evokes in you? For me it is a mix of responses including wonder and awe. This dust we are made of comes from stars. You and I, we are made of star dust.  And in a gesture of profound love God took this star dust, and breathed life into it to create us. Wow!  That ash cross holds a lot of meaning.

In the early church Lent was the time of preparation for those to be baptised at Easter. This was more than a time to learn about the being Christian. It was a time of preparation to take on new identities as followers of Christ. It was modeled on the story we hear every first Sunday in Lent of Jesus in the wilderness.

This year we hear Mark’s bare bones account of Jesus hearing God declare that he is the beloved son at his baptism, and then the Spirit casting him out into the wilderness to be tested. No fasting. No details of the testing. Just wild animals, angels serving, and the Great Tester – Satan.  This story echoes the story of God liberated the Hebrew people from slavery in an act of profound love and mercy. They spent the next 40 years in the wilderness learning and being tested in their new identity as the people of this liberating God. So too Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness embracing his identity as the beloved son and being tested by the powers that seek to limit, oppress, impoverish and destroy humanity and all creation. But Jesus stands firm in his identity as the beloved son of God. This is not a title, it is who he is, founded on a deep relationship of love.

Lent then is more than giving up chocolate. It is a time to reflect on who we are in God. Do we see ourselves as star dust given life by God in a gesture of profound love?  What inhibits us building our identity on the love and mercy of God? How might we live in ways that joins God’s ongoing work creating a world where all can flourish and thrive?