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Good Morning. It always makes me sad when people bewail the differences within the Christian church. To me, it is like saying how sorry we are that red isn’t green or yellow isn’t pink.  Imagine a world with only red flowers in it, for instance.  It would be like the dullest municipal garden you’d ever seen. The differences within the church can be one of the things which makes it interesting.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and a few years ago I found myself as a Baptist queuing alongside Anglicans to receive the mark of ash on my forehead from a Methodist minister at a multi-church conference!  It really was quite a mixture!  All the ecclesiastical colours were in there together.

Our traditions do set us apart…but the fundamentals of our faith draw us together.  Whether we show it by a silent prayer, a noisy procession through the streets or an ash cross on the forehead – our very souls cry out for forgiveness.  There is a vein running very deep within humanity which longs to be made clean, somehow.

Of course, the Ash on Ash Wednesday is traditionally made from the palm crosses given out on Palm Sunday the previous year.  In this way the whole church calendar is brought around full circle – like a ribbon stretched around a parcel. In churches where palms cannot be found, though – pussy willow branches are brought into the church on Ash Wednesday and placed in water.  With a little bit of care they will bud perfectly in time for Palm Sunday. 

Penitence on Ash Wednesday ought not just to be about feeling sorry. It should be the first step towards better things – like buds coming on a bare branch.

Dear God, today we pray that the sorrow of things done wrong might be eclipsed by the hope of things put right. Amen