An Ad for Ash Wednesday

Imagine tonight in the sanctuary. We have a 20 year old gospel singing Elvis Presley doing "Where Could I Go but to the Lord?" Some of the sisters faint in their pews. Some of the brothers begin to cry.

You really don't have to be a huge fan of the Hebrew Bible (what we Christians call the Old Testament) in order to realize that our church campus is situated on the edge of perhaps the largest Jewish community in Houston.

I'm not going to tell you the so-called Old Testament is unparalleled in expressing the human condition through story telling. Remember Adam and Eve? Abraham and Sarah? Isaac and Jacob? Dreamy Joseph and his coat of many colors? Moses and Elijah? And the wide range of human emotion and experience from mountain tops of spiritual heights to the valleys and pits of depression. All is exposed in the Psalms of David, is it not?

Speaking of David, the Ash Wednesday Sermon will be about David and Bathsheba and the amazing Psalm that David composed after he was called out by the Prophet Nathan for the sins of adultery and murder for which God forgave him and yet he still paid a heavy price. This story will knock your socks off.

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, forty weekdays before Easter. The practice of placing ashes on the forehead symbolizes repentance and contrition. We will engage in that mysterious liturgy in the church sanctuary and courtyard tonight. Will you be blown away tonight at 7:30 PM in the sanctuary? Will you then have that moment and that memory for all eternity? Only if you are present to experience it live.

Peace,
Jon B.

P.S. And you can attend and enjoy the mysterious Ash Wednesday Service starting in the sanctuary today at 7:30 PM, on March 1, can you not? And if you Mark your calendar and set a reminder now you will be more likely to remember to attend, will you not? That's right.