Thought for the Day-Marked by God's Mercy

Detail of East Window of St Olave Hart Street

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service at St Olave Hart Street on Ash Wednesday 18th February 2026 at 12.30pm based on the texts of Joel 2.1-2, 12-17 & Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

The gospel reading we have just heard tells us to beware of practicing piety before others in order to be seen. And it goes on to say that hypocrites mark their faces to show others that they are fasting.

In a moment I’m going to invite you to come up to the altar to receive an ash cross on your forehead.

On the surface, what we are hearing and doing this lunchtime seem to be two completely different things.


Here in this church – of all places – we ought to be used to seemingly polar opposites being held together in a holy tension. Olaf was a warrior – a killer – who became a saint who people pray to for healing. Betjeman called this place a country church in the heart of the City.

And above us, the unusual design of our great east window, shows both Christ in his passion - suffering on the cross – and right next to it with the cross shining brightly behind him, an image of Christ in glory.

An artistic representation of the seemingly polar opposite at the heart of our faith – that the death of Christ on the cross has through his resurrection brought the promise of new life for us and for the whole world.

The people memorialised all around us remind us that this has never been a place of easy, clear-cut answers. It is a space that acknowledges that we live in a City, in a world, where success and distress, where joy and consolation, where life and death, are a very real part of our existence.

That our attempts to live as disciples of Christ – to love God, ourselves and each other as he loves us – is a struggle. Sometimes we’re doing really well. Sometimes we are doing OK. Sometimes we mess up - badly. But we’re always somewhere in between. Nearly, but not quite there yet. Always, in some way, seeking forgiveness for turning away from the path Christ set for us to follow.

This place also exists as a living reminder that all the threads which form the tapestry of our lives, all our successes and failures, all our joys and consolations, are held together in a holy tension, by Christ on the cross.

So the cross of ash is both a sign of our fragile humanity and our mortality - that dust we are and to dust we shall return. A reminder of the brokenness of ourselves and of the world. But it is also a symbol of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Of our promise – at our baptism – to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. And of the promise of eternal life he brings to all those who confess and turn to him seeking forgiveness.

So, as we begin this season of Lent, we do not wear these temporary crosses of ash as a badge to be seen by others – setting ourselves apart as in some way better than them. But as a mark of our promise to continue this journey. Through the next forty days and forty nights of Lent. Through all the complexity and diversity of life to come. And as a reminder of where we are heading.

We come to be marked by God’s mercy.

Image
Detail of the East Window at St Olave Hart Street.

Links
Please join us if you can for our online Lent Course this Lent. Find details of that and other Lenten resources being offered by the Diocese of London and the Church of England at this link. Do join us at St Olave Hart Street for our special services and events this Lent. You can find details at this link.