Jesus Is
Lenten Devotional Series (Ash Wednesday)
Day 1 – Ash Wednesday
Lenten Theme: Jesus Is…
I AM WHO I AM
Exodus 3:13–15
Devotional Reflection
Moses asks for a name because names help us get our bearings. They let us point and speak and explain ourselves to others. Standing before a bush that burns without burning up, Moses asks God for a name he can carry with him, something solid enough to offer when people ask who sent him. What he receives is a name that resists being carried…a mystery meant to be lived rather than resolved.
“I AM WHO I AM.”
It’s a name that does not shrink to fit our understanding. It doesn’t explain God’s intentions or lay out a plan. It simply announces presence. God does not describe God’s self. God is.
Ash Wednesday brings us to the same place. With ashes on our foreheads, or with the truth they signify resting in our minds, we remember that we are dust and to dust we will return, that our lives are finite, our bodies fragile, our days numbered.
What often surprises us is that God does not step back from that truth. The name spoken from the burning bush meets us here, inside it. The Holy One does not wait for us to become more durable or more certain. God is present now.
This season of Lent invites us to listen closely to how that presence speaks. In the Gospel of John, Jesus takes this ancient name on his own lips and says it again and again. “I AM,” he says, and then he attaches it to the stuff of ordinary life: bread, light, a gate, a shepherd, a vine, life itself. These are not abstract ideas. They rise from the ground of human experience, from the places where hunger, fear, longing, growth, and belonging show up every day.
Over the weeks ahead, we’ll linger with these words and images, letting them shape a growing portrait of who Jesus is for us and among us. This devotional is meant to accompany that journey, offering a daily place to pause, listen, and notice where the presence of Christ may already be near.
We begin today with the name beneath them all. Before any image is explored, before any practice is taken up, we stand still before the mystery of a God who says, simply and steadily, “I AM.”
Practice
This Lent, we’re inviting one another into a shared practice of seeing.
Each week, a simple word drawn from Jesus’ “I AM” sayings will guide our attention: bread, light, gate, shepherd, vine, life, way. These words are meant to slow us down and tune our vision, helping us notice where Christ’s presence is quietly shimmering in the world around us.
When you notice something in the world that echoes the word of the week, pause. Let it be what it is. You might pray a simple prayer of presence adapted from Brian McLaren’s book Naked Spirituality, a prayer we will return to throughout the season:
Here I am, God.
Here you are, God.
Here we are together.
Who are you, God?
Who am I, God?
Who are we together?
If you want, take a photo of what you see. It could be something in nature, a moment of human kindness, a piece of art, or something small and ordinary that suddenly feels holy. The goal is not to explain the image or prove anything. It is to practice recognition.
You are invited, but never required, to share what you notice. If you choose to do so, you may post the image on social media using #JesusIsHereLent and the weekly focus tag. During these opening days, that tag is #IAm. If social media is not your space, you are welcome to email your image to hlewis@2bcliberty.org, where it can be shared in our church’s common spaces. You are also free to keep your noticing entirely to yourself. This practice is not about visibility, it’s about attention.
Today, the invitation is gentle. Pause. Breathe. Let yourself be here. Let God be here.
Prayer
Here you are, God.
Present before I know what to say or do.
Present with dust and breath alike.
Teach me to begin where I am
and to trust that you are already here.
Amen.