Ash Wednesday - meditation

“Buoyancy”

As many of you know, I enjoy scuba diving.  In order to have a good dive, I must figure out how much weight to add in order to obtain a place of buoyancy about five feet above the floor of the ocean.  It seems rather strange to have to actually add weight to oneself since the scuba gear, itself, is rather heavy.  It would seem as if I would sink to the bottom like a rock, but, without the additional weight, I would be constantly fighting to stay down near the bottom.  We are, in a sense, naturally buoyant, and even more so in salt water. 

              Someday, I will write my devotion book for Scuba divers, but until then, I will share how I feel scuba diving connects to Ash Wednesday.  Finding that place, that place where you are not sinking but also not fighting to stay under water, that place of freeness, that place of underwater floating, to me is like finding one’s center with God. 

But, life seems to give us dramatic ups and downs.  There are times when we feel like we are drowning and there are times when we feel like we can barely keep our head above water, there are times where we yearn to be in the boat where all is safe.  And during those times, perhaps we made choices that were not God centered, that might have been self-centered or we may feel angry at God, that God is punishing us, or that God is not present with us for whatever reason we may think up.  Sometimes we don’t even know how life has gotten so out of control and we just freeze out of fear, out of despair, out of hurt, or out of doubt.  Up and down we go, looking for an anchor, looking for a rope, looking for something to grab hold of, looking for salvation. 

            We begin tonight with the story of Peter.  Peter is one of the twelve disciples, a leader among the group.  The twelve have just witnessed the amazing miracle of the loaves and the fishes.  Jesus sends his disciples off in a boat to cross the lake and Jesus takes time in solitude to pray.  While the disciples are sailing across the lake, a storm sets in upon them and we are told that the boat is being battered by the waves.  We are then told that early in the morning, perhaps the sun is not yet up but there is the beginning whisper of light at the edge of the sky, they see an apparition on the water coming towards them.  Now, they probably had not gotten any sleep due to the storm, and the fuzz of night mixing with day might have made them rub their eyes, what in the world was going on?  I don’t blame them for being fearful.  Why, in a million years, would they expect Jesus to be walking on the water towards them?  So, they cry out.  And Jesus responds – do not be afraid. 

            Now, instead of just relaxing and being reassured that Jesus is on his way to join them, Peter seems to challenge this moment in time as he speaks out:  if it is you – command me to come to you on the water.  Really Peter?  But out of the boat Peter climbs and begins to walk towards Jesus.  That is, until a wind blows and he panics and well, you know what happens, he sinks.  But as he is sinking, he reaches out his hand towards Jesus and calls out – Save me!  In the midst of his sinking, he reaches out and cries:  Save me. 

            Ash Wednesday, here we are.  A day that marks the beginning of Lent, but a day where we too can say, Lord, I am afraid, Lord, if you are really there command me to come to you, a day where we can name where we have been so afraid and lost that we feel like we are going to sink and be lost forever, a day where we can reach out our hand and cry- Save me.    

Tonight we begin a sermon series that we will continue through the Sundays of Lent.  In this season, we will be journeying through the Dark Woods of life and finding the moments where God is there with us.  Now, just the mention of the words “Dark Woods” may bring to mind all kinds of mental imagery: scary, lost, danger, night, wild, elements.  All of which can, in one way or another, connect to the season of Lent.  Lent examines the realness of life: deceit, loss, sacrifice, sin, and even death. 

            But the dark woods offer us moments of grace, moments of divine interaction, moments where the hand of God reaches out to us, and lifts us back into the boat.  In Scuba diving, one seeks to find the place of buoyancy, the place where one is neither sinking nor rising to the surface but just floating, as if weightless, under the water.  One writer shares this:  “The human spirit possesses natural buoyancy.  It can be held down by enslavement to the senses, by ambition, by anger and violence, or by cares and worries.  It can be held down, but is natural tendency remains dramatically oriented toward God.  It can never be satisfied until this upward impulse is allowed.”  There are so many things in life that can hold us down.  Ash Wednesday is a day where we can ritualize those things, name those things, cry out to God and ask to be saved from those things: such as anger, and addiction, and despair, and loneliness.   It is here, in these places where we need to listen to our soul.  Where we need to hear that we are not where we are suppose to be.  Peter was not where he was suppose to be, he thought he was, he thought he could walk out on the water, but his fear overtook him.  His place  of natural buoyancy was reaching out to the hand of Jesus and being pulled back into the boat. 

            Where is your soul yearning to be?  Each of us has a place of buoyancy.  A place where our soul and God connect, where we are not stressed but released in the trust that God is present with us. 

On this Ash Wednesday, I invite you to take a rock and place it in the water for those things that are weighing you down, and I invite you to take a ping pong ball and place it in the water naming the places in your life that are buoyant, connected to God, free and unencumbered.