ASH WEDNESDAY REFLECTION

5 March 2025

During this season of Lent different Pastors from the LCiGB have written short reflections for us. This first one is from Bishop Paulina. Bishop Paulina is from Poland and currently serves the LCiGB Congregation in Nottingham along with the Polish Congregation in London. Elected Bishop in 2024 she is passionate about promoting social justice and serving our Church. Along with her roles as Pastor, Bishop, and Chaplain, she is a professional singer. She is married to a church minister and Racial Justice specialist from the Methodist Church of Britain. She grows papyrus, loves theatre, opera, long walks and swimming.

Grace of the Lord be with you always!

1 Peter 3:18-22  (NIV)

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits…20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.

This is a very beautiful text, full of symbolism and mystery. Martin Luther struggled while writing his sermon on this passage; he said – “perhaps this is the most obscure passage than any other in the New Testament!” Apparently, there are close to 180 different interpretations of these verses. I am thankful for Luther’s honesty. Ironically, Peter says (in 2 Pet. 3:16), that Paul has some writings that are “hard to understand.” So, there we are, but we want to meet God here and be not just informed but transformed in the beginning of the Lenten season. As with every Ash Wednesday – we bow our heads for the imposition of Ashes to be reminded of our delicate nature but also that we belong to God.

Peter’s theme is now pushed to the front. It is the theme of suffering (1 Pet. 3:13, 17, 18, 4:1, 13, 16, 19, 5:1, 9 and 10). No book in the Bible talks more about suffering than 1 Peter: not even the book of Job. Peter talks a lot about suffering and a lot of that is about learning to suffer well. We learn that for a believer, or follower of Christ, a big part of the package is suffering.

The Gospel teaches that the suffering of Christ was part of God’s purposes. If I can trust God for my salvation, I can trust God in my suffering. And this is the main hope in the Bible. Not just positive way of thinking but reaching out for hope in desperation; knowing that regardless of all circumstances, God is with us. I might not always understand why things are happening to me but our trust in God is not about having all the answers or that I am always feeling the way I would like to. The Gospel humbles us in our suffering and teaches us that we need the Gospel every day. But why God arranged things through suffering remains in many of our thoughts – a mystery that can make us angry and disappointed.

At this moment it is good to remember that Jesus had a time of crisis in Gethsemane, where He later concluded, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Then He had trusted God continuously (1 Pet. 2:23) and finally trusted God as He died. We need to have critical and crisis moments of trust, only then we can process things, search for answers, and settle into the reality, which is often hard.

After Christ died, He went and preached to non-believers in hell, offering them a chance of salvation, that they didn’t get while they were alive. So “the spirits in prison”, mentioned in Peter’s text, are those who didn’t know God, people like in the time of Noah’s day. For God – death was not an end, not a boundary…

In the Apostles Creed, which we speak out loud together confessing our faith, Jesus “was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead”. This is what we believe. This is what we say in our creed. However, my friends, I have to tell you, in the earliest forms of the creed, c.200 AD, that phrase is not found there. It must have been added a bit later. Theologians have serious problems with this view of the so called second chance, and until today it inspires many debates.

Maybe you will be surprised, but for me this is one of the best passages to preach on! There is plenty of hope in it! I have written my master’s theses about the Inclusive Salvation for All. Eternal heaven, not eternal hell. I studied this passage via the Church Fathers, who never met Jesus personally, but they studied deeply and profoundly the words of the first disciples. Also, we need to say, there were many things which hadn’t been written down yet at that time, but the spoken tradition was still very strong and delivered with great precision. With all this knowledge the Church Fathers were able to profit, and to seek understanding probably slightly easier and wider than the first disciples. We should not be afraid to say, that the first disciples were like an experimental school class in a newly opened school.

I hold on to God’s salvation and commit to live for Him in my suffering (1 Pet. 3:21)

Look over these three points:

1. I trust God’s purposes for my suffering – this points to faith, the past work of Christ.

2. I wait for God’s victory after my suffering – this points to hope, the future.

3. I receive and fulfil the commandment of love, in the present.

   
   

As Peter says, “though you don’t see Him, you love Him”

(1 Pet. 1:8). Faith, hope and love: all in Jesus Christ.

Think for a second when you first started asking questions about God, faith, and all this, when you became a believer, when you lost your faith, when you received it again? Maybe you remember it, maybe you don’t. The beginning of Lent is a good time to remember these things. To remember the beginnings, even if it was a very long time ago. To remember the reasons, the emotions. Maybe you were a child, and at that time you were very serious about His Kingdom, now you smile to it, now you are not as hot as then, when you desperately wanted to make this decision to follow Christ. Ssearch in your memory…

We are a small church, scattered members and friends of different nationalities, backgrounds, and liturgies. But we are rich in different traditions and experiences, living in many different communities, where our visibility reaches far even beyond this island’s borders… So, in these tough times of uncertainty because of war, conflict, discrimination, racism, climate crisis, and with one leg – friends with the Artificial Intelligence, and the other leg – enemies, let us not to be afraid, but remember:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Amen

Rt Rev Paulina Hlawiczka-Trotman

Original Article

Sources:Robin Koshy, Learning to Suffer Well;John Macarthur, Commentary on Peter’s Letters;Stephen Cole, “A Difficult Passage Explained and Applied”  August 2010;Bob Deffinbaugh, “A New Slant on Suffering.”;Wayne A. Grudem, (1994). Systematic Theology : An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (586);Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House;Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson – Poems, Ulysses