Pastor Dick Hurd: Richard Hurd
The Mid-Week Message is an On-Line Ministry Of Pastor Dick Hurd and the “Caton Church” A Global Methodist community of Faith March 5, 2025
What do we do with Ash Wednesday? How do we make it more than just a day to say nice things about repentance and forgiveness? How do we allow this annual observance to make a substantive change in how we live our lives day after day?
I think the first thing is to take a good long hard look at who and whose we are and ask ourselves the tough questions. Author, Ruth Harms Calkin goes through this exercise in a poem where she is having this long conversation with God. She explains how sorry she is for some perceived shortcoming and lists all the ways that she had demonstrated her deep contrition. Then she asks what is a tough question for her, “Lord what more can I do, how sorry do I have to be? The response from God comes quick, simple and to the point. Sorry enough to stop the sin!
So when we come on ash Wednesday to pray for forgiveness and receive the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads, will we be sorry enough to stop the sin? I think for many of us the answer might be… Well Lord, I’m sorry enough to try… again! If we are honest with ourselves and honest with God, that may be the only answer we can give. That is why God’s grace is so critically important to us. Often we are as sorry as our humanity will allow us to be. The good news of the Gospel is that God’s graceful heart is as deep and wide as His divinity allows Him to be toward us. Despite our failure, despite our weak-kneed devotion, despite our inability to be sorry enough, God’s grace is sufficient, God’s grace is greater than our sin!
So come tonight, come to seek forgiveness, come with a contrite heart, come to meet with your God, come to be a sorry as you can and allow God’s grace to bring you the rest of the way home!
Yours in the love of Christ
Pastor Dick
Breath Prayer: Lord , Help me to be sorry enough! Amen
Ps: Ash Wednesday Service at 7:pm at the Caton Fire Hall
