Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24 NRSVue
It’s early in the morning when I walk out into the chill outside the church doors. The Ash Wednesday stations are laid out in the sanctuary, four of them inspired by the four elements – earth, water, air, and fire. At each station, we are invited to reflect on different aspects of Ash Wednesday, and our own role in God’s evolving story.
At the water station, we are invited to write down confessions on a slip of dissolvable paper. I ask God to search me and the sins pour onto the page: addictions, doubts, fears, bitterness, gossip, lies. The weight of the paper feels heavy in my hand. A lifetime of perpetual sin. A lifetime of being reminded by siblings at the most inopportune time how little God loves me. A lifetime of memory to call me back into shame, trap me in the grave clothes of yesterday.
I move to put my sins into the pitcher of water where we are instructed to “stir until the sin washes away.” I anticipate the process to take at least a few seconds.
When I think of God’s mercy, particularly as I bear the weight of my sin, I think it is a slow trickle. I imagine God hearing my cries for mercy and exercising deliberate judgement on whether to forgive this time. I imagine God’s Eyes gliding over my list and lingering over certain items. I imagine God’s Eyes looking up from the paper at me to see if I really feel repentant, or if I’m just writing down my sins because it’s what I was told to do.
If and when God decides I’m worthy of being forgiven for the same sins for the umpteenth time, I imagine God’s grace is like a dish scrubber. This grace is forceful and direct as it digs and digs at the stains and sauces and food chunks. God has to work at it to make a life as dirty as mine clean again.
In reality, I drop my sins in the water and watch as it dissolves almost instantaneously, the specks of paper growing smaller until they fade into the cloudiness.
Before I was even born, God decided to forgive me for whatever trouble I got myself into, no matter how messy or repeatedly. It is a choice for God to forgive me, but it’s one God has already decided before I’ve even worked up the courage to ask for it.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely, therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.
Romans 5:6-9 NRSVue
Since God has already decided to forgive us, to accept the shedding of Christ’s blood in our place, the mercy is more like a flood than a scrub. God doesn’t need any time at all to wash us white as snow. Mercy comes barreling. Mercy comes immediately. Mercy comes even for the darkest sins and, once touched, absolves it before our very eyes without effort or callouses.
He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. ‘
Psalms 103:10-14 NRSVue
All of my hope as a sinner is in Jesus, whose sacrifice makes my repentance process immediate and effortlessly transformational. I could never earn or deserve it, and yet it comes barreling down the river banks to me all the same.
I am dust in my Father’s hand. May He search me and know me. May He heal me and break me. May He return me to dust one day.
To dust you are. To dust you shall return. Amen.
Like this post? Please share it with a friend! Hate this post? Let us know. Also, feel free to let us know what questions you have on digital ministry.
Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He sells poetry art here, published a collection of poems titled Weak Eyes, and masquerades as the spoken word artist Liihey. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
Living Beyond 
Leave a comment