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