Ash Wednesday

John Donne’s Hymn to God the Father

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin by which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done.
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore:
And, having done that, Thou hast done:
I fear no more.

Donne’s poem impacted me profoundly when I first read it. I discovered Donne through a slim, beat-up paperback in my parents’ basement, leftover from my Dad’s college days. It was just a collection of his Holy Sonnets, but it spoke to me in a way no other writer ever had.

My first year of graduate school, I used to visit a corner of my favorite bookstore where there was a hardbound copy of his complete poetry. The book was twenty-one dollars, an enormous sum for me back then. After months of returning to that corner to read the book, I finally bought it (I decided I could skimp on groceries for a few weeks).

In “Hymn to God the Father,” Donne writes of the sin that pollutes us and keeps us from God, but he ends recognizing a final sin: the fear that God will not forgive, that Donne’s sin will alienate him forever from God.

I have little respect for people who cannot recognize their own moral failings. In my mind, humbly acknowledging our own errors and flaws is the bedrock of good character. This characteristic, however, can become a twisted form of pride: I am better than everyone else because I think I am worse than everyone else. Unlike they, I face the truth about myself. I know what an awful person I am. This is part of the devastating logic of depression, the belief that I have some secret insight into the depth of my own failures that other people fail to notice.

The Christian gospel teaches us something different. We are not the arbiters of our own goodness or evil; God is. We can declare ourselves neither unforgivable nor above forgiveness. When God forgives, we are forgiven, and fears and doubts about such things only attempt to knock God off the throne and put ourselves in his place. We cannot undo God’s forgiveness.

The challenge of faith in the Gospel is to each day recognize we are not the masters of our own souls, making ourselves good and bad, but that we are the receivers of God’s grace, a grace that loves sinners, that stoops to our weakness, that breathes new life into the dead. I cannot make myself holy; I can only accept that God has done it for me through Jesus Christ.

Ash Wednesday focuses on the two foundational truths of the Christian faith: the reality and catastrophe of our sin and the overwhelming power of God’s love and forgiveness. The wisdom and humility of Christian spirituality is in holding both truths equally in our hearts at the same time.

I cannot make myself forgivable; I can only accept the free and expansive gift of God’s forgiveness, based not on my actions or character, but on his. The joy of Christianity is in accepting that we are not in control, but we are deeply loved and eagerly forgiven by the one who is.

And having done that, I fear no more.

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I am planning a series of posts for each of the Sundays in Lent, primarily on the spirituality of fasting and feasting. Stop by on Sundays, if you are interested. It would be great to see you.

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