Question Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces
of wickedness that rebel against God?
Answer I renounce them.
Question Do you renounce the evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Answer I renounce them.
Question Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you
from the love of God?
Answer I renounce them.
Question Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your
Savior?
Answer I do.
Question Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Answer I do.
Question Do you promise to follow and obey him as your
Lord?
Answer I do.
That is from the Baptismal liturgy.
The threefold renunciation, and the threefold affirmation.
I turn from this and turn toward that.
Not this but that.
A change of direction. Declared three times for emphasis.
A season of penitence and fasting.
A season of renouncing and affirming.
A season of giving up and taking on.
A season of being set free, from sin, evil, and the devil.
A season of being set free by the One who is Savior and Lord.
A season of being set free by Jesus the Christ, the anointed, the Messiah, the chosen.
A season of breaking the chains that enslave, and making the ties that bind.
Sin, evil and the devil.
They turn love into ashes.
And we are complicit.
And we can’t help ourselves.
It is like an addiction, being bound to these powers which corrupt, destroy and draw us away.
Ashes, ashes we all fall down.
Who will raise us up? Who will refashion, regather, remind us into the freedom that is of God?
We kneel in silence.
We kneel in public.
We physically humble ourselves, that we may learn how to begin repentance, how to make a right beginning of repentance.
This is so much more than inward thoughts and inclinations.
We humble ourselves bodily before God, before each other, before the world.
We wear the ashes, the ashes of the mess we have made, and the ashes of our mortal nature.
The ashes of “we don’t have much longer before we go back down to the dust.”
We have made a mess, we are going to die, time is running out. Those kind of ashes.
We kneel in silence before the one who gathers us back together.
What ties me down?
What stops me from reaching out to the one who is freedom?
Does my life reveal the freedom of God?
Or does my life reveal the darkness of slavery?
Tis the season to discern and decide.