“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…” (Joel 2:13).
Ash Wednesday begins with a word that is both heavy and hopeful: return.
Yesterday, in our reflection on Lamentations 3:40, we were invited to “examine our ways and return to the Lord.” Today, in the Book of Joel, the call comes again — not as accusation or a command, but as a plea or invitation.
Return.
It is a word that assumes distance. You don’t return unless you have wandered away or drawn apart. It assumes a relationship. You don’t return to a stranger. And it assumes love and forgiveness. No one returns where they’re not welcome.
The Hebrew word behind return (shuv) is filled with images of movement. It means to turn back, to go home, to retrace your steps. It isn’t so much about feeling as it is about doing. It’s a pivot of the heart followed by a pivot of the feet.
On Ash Wednesday, ashes mark our foreheads in the shape of a cross — a sign not just of mortality but, more importantly, a sign of belonging. Part of returning is remembering who we are and whose we are.
Perhaps the clearest picture of return in all of Scripture is the younger son in the Gospel of Luke. Having run away from home and wasted his inheritance, he finally “came to himself.” He understood what was most important. His head and heart changed. What he experienced wasn’t self-hatred; it was clarity. He remembered who he was. He remembered his father and family. He remembered where he belonged.
And so he returned.
And remember how the story ends. The father, who has been watching and waiting, sees him coming down the road and runs to him. He embraces. He restores. The return is met with joy before the apology is even finished.
Lent isn’t about performance or dramatic displays of sorrow. God doesn’t want those. It’s really more about God than us anyway… a God who wants us home with him. It’s a doorway that is always unlocked, one with a “welcome” sign that’s always there, no matter how many times we’ve walked out of the door to do our own thing.
That’s why we have Lent every year. Returning isn’t a door we walk through once. It is a rhythm of life and grace. We are always returning — from distractions, from the belief we can live life on our own terms, from subtle pride, from putting God last in a life of other priorities. But no matter how many times it happens, every return is met by God’s grace running down the road toward us.
Where have you drifted? What has numbed your hunger for God?
What would it mean — not to regret — but to return?
Return. Come home. You will find the door open and God waiting for you.
