Ash Wednesday 2004
SEEKERS CHURCH
A CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
IN the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour
Ash Wednesday 2004
Reflection
Wisdom marks our foreheads with ashes
as we begin the journey through Lent.
She intuits what these forty days may hold in store for us
and tries to prepare us.
Remembering Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness,
she knows the trials, temptations,
and vulnerability one encounters in seeking to reflect,
to shed, to open oneself, to prepare.
She remembers the wounds to come.
Jan L. Richardson, Sacred Journeys, p 133.
Gathering
Hymn
Prayer
Leader: Lord and lover of humankind
People: Teach us to groan as you must groan,
mourners of us all.
Instruct us in the language of lamentation.
Leader: For wars we thought were far away
have snatched lives so near.
People: And what shall we do, Lord,
with all our might?
What are we to do,
we who became yours in baptism,
we who are people of this nation?
Leader: Good Lord, hold us in your arms
as we tear open the gospel’s hard truth;
People: Is this the hour to trample down violence,
to deny death any more lives
to refuse false safety in wall and weapons
to beg of you, Lord, courage enough
to look at all that is amiss in our world?
All: With the ashes of terrorism and war,
the ashes of so many lives gone,
we mark ourselves for this Lent.
Leader: Be with us as we ponder the gospel of Jesus
who is Lord for ever and ever.
All: Amen.
Silence
Offering Our Selves to God
Hymn
Prayer offerings
Anointing one another with the ashes, saying:
“Remember that dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Leaving This Sanctuary to Walk With Christ in the World
Hymn
Benediction
