Ash Wednesday, March 5th, 2025
JOEL 2:1-2, 12-17; PSALM 103:8-18; 2 COR. 5:20b-6:10; MATTHEW 6:1-6, 16-21
you despise nothing you have made
There is a certain kind of truthfulness, and honesty, that comes with observing Lent. It’s particularly honest and truthful about the conditions of life we face as creatures—as creatures we are fragile, we are limited, we are vulnerable. To say “we are creatures” is a way of saying “we are not gods,” “we are not masters of our own fate,” it is to recognize that there is a greater power than us, a God with the power to make—and the power to unmake.
Part of recognizing our creatureliness is in recognizing the reality of suffering—at least the reality of suffering in a fallen world. And the readings for Ash Wednesday seem keen to enumerate and list the different ways in which we suffer, the different ways in which we are in pain, and the ways in which this suffering and pain arise from the fallenness of the world, and our fallenness as creatures, and that even our repentance is marked by pain and suffering.
Joel speaks of “return[ing] to [the Lord] … with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Paul, in Second Corinthians, speaks of “great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, [and] hunger,” all as part of commending ourselves to God as God’s servants. Even in Matthew, the reality of suffering and pain is there though hidden: even if we might be experiencing pain and suffering in our repentance and returning to the Lord, we are asked nevertheless not to “look dismal like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.” Do not show your suffering, says Jesus, at least don’t show your suffering to others for the sake of appearing pious.
This can make for some difficult questions about God, and the character of God. Why is it that such suffering, that this sort of pain, is part of the penitential process? Why must we hurt in order to return to the Lord? Is this part of God’s design? Is this painful penitential process part of a punishment for our part in the sin of the world?
The Bible, perhaps thankfully, does not have just one answer to the question of why we hurt as we return to the Lord. We can certainly find evidence in Scripture that this is about teaching us something, that through pain and suffering we learn—“the school of the flesh,” the ancients might say. God might hurt us, but it’s a way of making us open to his healing; that pain is in fact necessary for healing.
Elsewhere we might read that being wounded by God is simply evidence of the power of God—that when God acts upon us as frail creatures, we experience that power as pain and suffering.
And then we have Job—who sees no symmetry between God’s wounding and his healing, nor does he bear much optimism about pain as evidence of God’s power. When Job’s friends try to make these sorts of arguments about pain, suffering, and God, Job is silent; he is unable to explain suffering and pain, and simply refrains from speaking to it—Job cannot agree that pain and suffering are teaching him anything, that pain is necessary for healing, or that God is simply so powerful that our frail human frames experience this power as pain. Job will neither rationalize God’s ways, nor will he excuse God for it.
Neither does God seek to explain himself, saying rather, to Job from the whirlwind, that we are creatures, and that God is God, and between God and the creature lies an unbridgeable gap in knowledge and understanding, including our understanding of pain, suffering, and God’s part in it.
And so we are left without a clear answer to this question as to why returning to God can be so painful, or even as to why God appears to be the author of our suffering. And while we can point to Jesus as the one who bears our suffering on the cross, clearly this does not evacuate our experience of life and of our return to God as painful in many ways.
Whether we find some solace in these different ways of making sense of pain, suffering, and repentance—and some do find solace in each of these notions: that pain and suffering helps to grow in our understanding of God and God’s ways; or that pain and suffering are part of what it means for a creature to experience the vast power of God; or that pain and suffering are an inexplicable part of God’s mysterious ways in the world—I would want to return to where we began, with the notion of what it is to be a creature.
To be a creature may mean being fragile, limited, and vulnerable, but underneath that lies a truth that the collect for Ash Wednesday is keen to point out: to be a creature is to be loved. “You despise nothing you have made,” says the Collect of God; and to be loved like this means that, as we lament “our sins and acknowledging our brokenness,”that we “may obtain of … the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness.”
To be loved as a creature of God doesn’t explain pain and suffering, but it does go some way to help us understand where God is leading us: to wholeness, to forgiveness, and ultimately to reconciliation: to a holy harmony and accord with the one who made us in love and affection.
The Revd Canon Preston Parsons, PhD
Rector, St. John’s, Kitchener
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.