Ash Valentine

Happy Valentine’s Day! I can hardly believe we’re already in mid-February – wasn’t Christmas just yesterday?

Today is the day we celebrate the human experience of love and affection for one another. Receivers of love freely give back in a joyful exchange of hearts and flowers and chocolates. And cards offer words that some of us may not be able to conjure across our lips. All of these expressions offer symbolic gestures, a glossy veneer of the deeper emotion that might only be felt through a lingering embrace or a passionate kiss.

This year, for Christians, there is a weightiness to our sugar-coated revelries as we take a moment to step aside from the exhilarating highs of love, to wade into the heavy acknowledgement of our own personal sin.

Gulp.

It seems unnatural to abandon the adrenaline rush of love to wallow in the mire of one’s own frailty and failures. But for Christians, today is not just Valentine’s Day, but also Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Lenten season – a season of repentance and sacrificing something out of our lives in recognition of the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross. So those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates being passed around today might be particularly trying for the faithful Christian who’d chosen to go on a chocolate fast for lent!

That’s the paradox of Ash Valentine’s Day (if I may be so bold). Today love and lament go hand in hand. Today we carry hearts while wearing a cross of ash. Sounds a bit…I don’t know…bittersweet. But in reality, it’s not. After all, on Ash Valentine’s Day we recognize that Divine love covers our sins. But to really appreciate just how wide and long and high and deep God’s love is for us, we have to recognize all of those things within us that make us narrow, short, low, and shallow. It’s a contrast we often take for granted. And that’s why we take time to remember. After all, how can we ever truly appreciate the warmth of a fire until we’ve experienced the bite of the cold?

Is it self-deprecating to dwell on where we’ve gone wrong, been led astray, and flat out lived lives of defiance? Won’t we be depressed to be reminded that there is something inside of us that makes us regularly unlovable? Maybe – but only if we look inward without also looking upward.

Self-reflection can be healthy when kept in eternal perspective. Out of His great love for us, Jesus Christ came to save us from our wrongdoings. He came to make a way for healing and forgiveness. He came to be in relationship with us even in those times when we might repel others away from us. If we ignore the fact that there is something within us that we need to be saved from, we may never recognize our need for a Savior.

Therefore, if at Christmas we proclaim that Christ is the reason for the season, then on Ash Wednesday we remember that our sins are the reason for Christ.

Theresa Danley

Commissioned Lay Pastor

Milk River Churches

(Presbyterian Church of Chinook, Chinook United Methodist Church, Chinook American Lutheran Church, First Presbyterian Church of Havre)