Ash Wednesday – 22 February 2023

Collect
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Joel. 1-2, 12-17
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping,
and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly;
gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.
Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, “Where is their God?’ ”

2 Corinthians 5. 20-6.10
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.
For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.
” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!
We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,
but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance,
in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,
truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute.
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known;
as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

John 8. 1-11
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
Early in the morning he came again to the temple.
All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery;
and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them,
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
When they heard it, they went away, one by one,
beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”