Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

February 18, 2026 / Ash Wednesday

INVITATION TO LENT 

Friends in Christ, today with the whole church we enter the time of remembering Jesus’ Passover from death to life, for the purpose of renewing our life in Christ.  In this holy season, we remember in a pointed way that our Lord Jesus Christ calls each of us to be his disciples, and as such, to resist whatever leads us away from love of God and one another.

Even our environment here in this space calls us to focus solely on love of God and neighbor.  

• The color purple is the color of repentance.  And indeed, during this service, and all throughout the season of Lent, we highlight the role of confession in our spiritual life.  Repentance is not just sorrow for our sins.  More critically, it is turning away from everything that would lead us away from God and in order that we might turn toward the way of love.
• The browns that you see – in the flowers and in the fabric – are a reminder that we gather at the beginning of Lent in the depths of winter.  But just as the browns we see in nature don’t mean that the natural world is dead, just dormant, waiting for the awakening of Spring, so, too, we long for the renewal of Easter, the springtime feast toward which we are moving.
• The brown fabric is also a cover for the “shiny bits” of our furnishings.  Think of it this way:  Lent is not flashy.  It’s substance over style.
• For much the same reason, we’ve removed all the banners from the side walls.  What this highlights for me is the clean simplicity of our worship space – which feels especially appropriate for a season in which we get back to the basics of our faith without distraction, with singular focus.
• And finally, the thing that probably has raised eyebrows the most:  you’ve obviously seen that our center aisle is, well, more a winding path than a straight line of access to the font and altar.  There are a few reasons.
• First, the path to an intimate relationship with God is rarely straight or direct.  Rather, life is often a meandering journey, moving through twists and turns of fate and faith.  The wandering aisle reminds us of those twists and turns.  But trust that this path – and the path of life, itself – lead us to our source of strength and renewal in the font and the altar.
• Second, you’ll notice that the path is outlined with some scattered rocks, like a wilderness path.  Lent can feel like a wilderness, like an unfamiliar road.  But again, trust that the road through the wilderness leads to life.
• Finally, I know that this arrangement of chairs probably feels a little bit uncomfortable, makes you feel off kilter.  That, too, is a part of the Lenten season.  Sometimes we need to get comfortable with our discomfort, in order that we might lean more wholly on the one who is truly in control, the source of ultimate comfort.
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Our environment reflects the season of Lent:  a period of repentance, a chapter of spiritual awakening, a time of substance and getting back to basics, a wandering path that leads through the spare wilderness to the abundant blessings of Easter.  Welcome, dear friends, to Lent.

MEDITATION

For a few days after my surgery last fall, I wasn’t supposed to lift anything more than a gallon of milk.  Do you know how much a gallon of milk weighs?  I googled it and found out that it’s a little over 8 pounds.  Eight pounds doesn’t seem like much.  I’ve got roughly 8 pounds of rocks in this bag.  

Most of us, I would think, could lift this weight with relative ease.  But if you put all these rocks in your pockets or in your purse, you would definitely know they were there.  And by the end of the day, you would probably be tired of lugging around the extra weight.  Kind of like how it feels to carry a load of guilt around with you every day.  It’s not so heavy at first – those feelings of failure and shame and inadequacy.  You even sort of get used to carrying them.  But after a while, the more you think about all the things that you shouldn’t be doing but that you do anyway, the more you realize all that you really ought to be doing that you’re not – that weight wears you down and tires you out.  

We need Ash Wednesday to lighten our load.  We need confession to offload all the sins that we carry around.  That’s why, as we confess our sins in a few moments, I’ll be dropping rocks into the font.  Every time you hear the clatter of stones in this bowl, think:  oh, there’s another sin I’m getting rid of . . . thanks be to God.

Now, when all is said and done, it’ll be a pretty good-sized pile of rocks in our relatively shallow font.  You’ll see it for yourselves when you come up to get ashes in a few minutes.  In fact, I’m going to stand on the other side of the font to mark your foreheads with ashes so you have the opportunity to pause at the font and reflect on what those stones stand for.  And I suspect that when you personalize and internalize what those stones mean, it’s going to look like a pretty big pile.  And then, after you’ve glimpsed the enormity of your sinfulness, then come the ashes – the sign of your mortality.  The sign of your impending death.  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

But do not despair.  Because even though this day is about the enormity of our sinfulness and the inevitability of our death, it is also about, it is even more about, the love of Jesus Christ – a love that is so merciful that it washes away our sins, a love that is so strong that it promises life beyond death.

So when you pause to look at the pile of rocks in the font, see how many there are.  Reflect on how heavy they are.  But do not despair.  Notice where they are – these rocks, which represent our sins, are immersed in the water of forgiveness which washed over us on the day we were baptized.  These stones – our sins – have not dried up or displaced the water of grace.  You can still get to the water – still see it, still touch it.  And each Sunday, as we confess our sins, I will remove more and more of these stones until finally, at Easter, there will be nothing left to impede our access to God’s love.

And when I use ashes to signify your mortality, do not despair to think that one day you will die.  Notice where those ashes are placed – in the same place where you were marked with oil as a child of God on the day you were baptized.  Let the mark remind you that you are still – and always will be – beloved of God – no matter what.  And notice, too, in what shape the ashes are given – the sign of the cross, the sign of Christ’s victory over sin and death.  For the promise of eternal life, given to us in our baptism, is that even though we die, we will live forever with Christ.  

That we are forgiven, that we are beloved, that we shall never be separated from the love of Christ, not even by death – these are the gifts of refreshment and renewal that are available to us in this season.  By the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, may God grant us a good Lent.