Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician and scientist during the third century before Christ. He is credited with many scientific, mathematical, and engineering discoveries. Perhaps most famous among them – although apocryphal (that is, not verifiable) – is the following story.
King Hiero II of Syracuse had a crown made out of pure gold. However, he thought he had been cheated, and lesser materials had been used to make the crown. The king charged Archimedes with determining whether the crown was pure gold or not … without melting the crown down to see what made it tick.
While sitting in his bath, Archimedes noticed that his body displaced a certain volume of water. In an instant, he realized that by comparing the amount of water displaced by the crown to the amount of water displaced by a similar weight of pure gold he could determine the composition of the crown without destroying it in the process.
In his enthusiasm, Archimedes leapt from the bathtub – buck naked – and ran for his laboratory shouting “εὕρηκα, heúrēka!” – that is, in Greek, “I have found it!”
Thus giving rise to the common phrase, “a eureka moment.”
Today is Ash Wednesday.
And the whole theme of Lent is repentance. Which comes from a Greek word for “change your mind.” We spend our time in Lent focusing on sin and its consequences. The original word in Hebrew for sin means “to miss the mark.”
Too often, we allow the world to convince us to replace our own precious crown of glory for the tinfoil hat of religious speculation … or a paper hat of impassioned partying. In either case, we trade the glory of the children of God for mere dust and ashes.
Today we will have ashes placed on our heads as a sign of our desire to repent – to turn back – to our divine inheritance … to admit to the world that we have sinned – that is, missed the target of who God has revealed us to be through His Son Jesus Christ … our Savior and our Lord.
And if I might, I would like to borrow an idea from Keith Idleman, a Kentucky pastor, who uses the parable of the prodigal son and the acronym A.H.A. to help his readers to engage in God-inspired “Aha!” or “Eureka” moments.
We all know the parable of the prodigal son. Son goes away, son figures out he’s screwed up, son comes back with a plan, father blows son out of the water with his generous mercy. Other son screws up by being a jerk.
We all screw up. We are all, at one time or another the prodigal younger son – who loses his spiritual way through material things; or the prodigal older son – who loses his spiritual way through bad thinking.
And so, on to “AHA.”
The first “A” is for “AWAKENING” … the younger son in the parable had a sudden awakening that what he had done and how he was now living were not where he was supposed to be.
The “H” is for “HONESTY” … the son was brutally honest with himself. He didn’t blame anybody. He didn’t make excuses. He figured it it with bold and honest clarity.
The final “A” is for “ACTION” … immediate action. The son didn’t schedule his trip home for when it was convenient for the pigs or OK with his new master. He went. He just went.
Pastor Idleman points out that we may hit on one of the three at any given moment – but when we hit on all three, and engage the grace of Almighty God … those are the AHA moments of TRUE REPENTANCE – returning to God’s fullness of grace, and mercy, and love. Drawing closer to our divine inheritance as the children of the kingdom.
As we continue our morning liturgy … and as we receive ashes on our heads shortly … and as we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ … let us pray for that grace – the AHA moment of divine grace to wake up to what we have done, or are doing; to be brutally honest in recognizing the “big T” Truth of God’s revelation … found in the Person of Jesus Christ, and – without delay – take that moment for action.
In other words: let us REPENT, AND BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL.
