The First Sunday of Lent and in just four days we have moved from ashes to the desert and a time of testing.  Ashes, desert, testing: three ideas, three thoughts to begin our Lenten journey. 

First ashes.  Why are ashes so popular, why do so many people get ashes?  I suspect it is because as a symbol they are blunt, primal and they speak the language of the soul.  Something inside each of us knows exactly why we receive ashes:  “Remember you are dust and unto dust you will return!”  There is no explanation needed; the message is clear.  It is no accident that ashes have always been a major symbol within all religions.  We see it throughout the bible; to put on ashes, to sit in ashes, is to say publicly and to ourself that we are in a penitential, a reflective mood.  This is not “ordinary time” for us or a season of celebration.  We are grieving some of the things we have done and are waiting for a better time.  This is truly the “fast” before the “feast.”  There is a story that we all know that brings this out beautifully - Cinderella.  That very name comes from two words:  cinder or ashes and the latin word puella or young girl.  Literally it means the young girl who sits in the cinders, the ashes.  The story says it all, before the glass slipper is placed on her foot, before the beautiful gown, and the ball, there must be a period of sitting in the ashes, of being smudged, of being humbled, and of waiting.  She has to “fast” before the “feast.”  That is the story of Lent.



And where does that waiting take place?  In the desert. The desert represents a place where it is just us, alone.  No fancy clothes, no distractions, nothing special to eat.  Everything is basic, necessary and simple.  A very humbling place.  In a desert we quickly learn how vulnerable we are.  It takes away all the security and protection of ordinary life, strips us bare and leaves us exposed before both God and the devil.  Either one survives or one doesn’t.  And yet, if we sit in the desert long enough we can be treated to a burst, a “feast” of color in springtime after the long dry season.  Deserts know fast and feast.



So we come to the temptations:  a stone into bread; power over all the kingdoms of the world; leap from the temple, let God save you.  You could say there is some good in each of these.  The problem with these and with all temptations is they always ask us to do things for ourselves.  They are always “me-centered.”  Real temptation is never an offer to fall but rather to rise, never to seek less, always to seek more, for me!  Adam and Eve weren’t asked if they wanted to be like the snake but rather did they wish to be like God.  We want to be in control of our own lives.  We want to be the creator not the creature.  In a very real sense, the temptations Jesus experienced are a reminder to us that the fundamental temptation is to deny our human limitations and to refuse to let God be God for us.  Lent is a time for us to remember that we really are dust and not merely to wear it on our foreheads for a day.

Lent is not a time for us to focus on what we are going to do to be saved.  The first reading from Deuteronomy tells us that it is a time for us to reflect on what God has already done for us.  Lent is not so much a time to be “doing things” but rather a time to be open to the transformative “things” God wishes to do for us. Lent is a season for each of us to sit in the ashes, to spend our time, like Cinderella, working and sitting among the cinders of the fire - grieving what we have done wrong, refraining from the banquet, refusing to do business as usual and simply being still so that the ashes, and the desert can do their work in us.