Grace is a pure, undeserved gift from the Beloved. It is not something we have earned, “not the result of works,” “not of our own doing” in any way at all as we read in the epistle lesson for today. God’s merciful, reconciling love gathers us up in the Divine Presence, enabling us to trust in what “God prepared beforehand to be our way of life,” the way of the cross, walking with Christ Jesus day by day. During Lent, as we prepare ourselves for the rigors of Holy Week and the joy of Easter’s resurrection celebration, we may find grace carrying us along on the journey.

Once, many years ago, when I was making confession, after I finished offering up the current things that were weighing me down, the priest suggested I jot them down or sketch them in some way on a piece of paper he provided. Then after pronouncing absolution and ending with “The Lord has put away all your sins,” he burned the paper to ash. The ritual somehow seemed to make it real for me. I experienced God’s sanctifying grace in a profound way.

Years later remembering that experience, at a Lenten Quiet Day I was leading, I gave participants a similar opportunity. As the morning opened, there was a crude, wooden cross propped on the step in front of the altar with a hammer and a container of nails alongside. I introduced the techniques of self-examination recommended by Martin Smith in his book Reconciliation: Preparing for Confession in the Episcopal Church and suggested that, in the quiet time, they choose one to help them discover what they needed to confess that day. As each one was ready, s/he would commit it to paper, go the altar, and nail it to the cross. At the end of the day, each of us collected our scraps of paper and together burned them in a large crucible, recognizing that the fire of God’s love burns away the dross leaving us pure and clean once more. “By grace we have been saved.”

(Should you try this ritual on our own, be sure to use a safe container in a safe place.)