In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
“You
are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those are the words with which I will
impose ashes on your foreheads in just a few moments. That’s an inconvenient truth
one if I’ve ever heard one. And yet, outside of Christmas and Easter, Ash
Wednesday is typically one of the most well attended days in the Church year.
People who don’t regularly come on Sundays come out to have a priest put a
cross of ashes on their forehead and remind them that they are dust. How is
this Gospel? How is this Good News? Or is it?
The
most obvious meanings behind the ashes are about sin and death – namely that
both are realities of our lives and our world. Ash Wednesday can be seen a corrective
to our death-denying culture and to our “I’m okay, you’re okay” mentality. Now,
I hope that your eventual death doesn’t come as a surprise. We all know that
death, even if we see through it lens of Christian hope, is a hard fact of
life. So I’m not convinced that this is the only purpose of the ashes – to remind
us of our mortal nature.
The
ashes that will be put upon your foreheads are the charred remains of leftover
palm branches from Palm Sunday. They are a reminder of the ways in which things
go astray. The palm branches that we used to welcome our Lord as he entered Jerusalem
are degraded in the same way that our shouts of “hosanna” turned to cries of “crucify
him” a few days later. Yes, sin, like death, is a reality that we know well.
Whether it be your personal sins of anger, violence, greed, negligence in
prayer and worship or if it is a communal sin like pollution or racism, it is
clear that things are broken, askew from the love of God. While acknowledging our
sins is very much a part of Ash Wednesday, the ashes symbolize more than
captivity to sin.
Again,
sin and death do not strike me as particularly good news to receive. When we
first hear “you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we may think “curse” or
“punishment.” And going to Scripture, we might even think there is
justification for such a belief. After the disobedience of Adam and Eve, when
they are banished from Eden, God says “By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are
dust, and to dust you shall return.” And I get that this does, at first glance,
seem to be a punishment.
But
I do think that there is Good News, that there is Gospel, in the statement that
“you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Dust is our origin, our source.
Genesis tells us that we were created out of the dust of Eden. Though we may
not live in Eden any longer, that we will return to that dust out of which we
came is a promise, not a curse. It is a statement that we will return to the
ground of our being. As long as we remain a part of created nature, we remain
within the grasp of the love of God, and that is always good news.
Astrophysicists and biologists generally agree that you and I are the result of exploding
stars. When stars explode, a tremendous amount of energy and heavier atoms are
sent hurling through space. Over billions of years, this star dust coalesced
into this planet, and ultimately into life. We are star dust. Often we think of
dust as something that we don’t want, as dirty. And dust can be seen in that
way. But star dust seems more magisterial, and it is. We may very well be
nothing but dust; but dust is still something created by God, still a part of Creation
that came out of the love of God and is destined for the wholeness of God.
The
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has a poem entitled “Marked by Ashes.” In
it, he writes “we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth: of failed
hope and broken promises, we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust; we can
taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.” And certainly,
mortality and humility are a part of the ash of this day. But he then writes “We
are able to ponder our ashness with some confidence, only because our Wednesday
of ashes anticipates God’s Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.”
We must never forget the victory of Easter. Lent is not a season to focus on
sin and death, rather Lent has historically been the season in which we prepare
to receive the joys of Easter as fully as possible. Developing liturgical
amnesia to put aside the Resurrection is not the goal of this day or season.
Ash may remind us of what is broken, but it also reminds us that we remain a
part of God’s realm of grace and mercy.
Our
Psalm today shows us what this is all about: “God forgives all your sins and
heals all your infirmities; God redeems your life from the grave and crowns you
with mercy and loving-kindness; God satisfies you with good things, and your
youth is renewed like an eagle’s.” We are plagued by the effects of sin and
death, and yet our soul benefits from God’s steadfast love. We will be defined
not by our sin, but by God’s grace. The current ailments of our flesh will be
absorbed into the redeeming love of God. We will one day be renewed in the
fullness of God’s grace.
Ash Wednesday brings us
face to face with the reality of sin and death, and we do need that reminder.
We need to grasp the seriousness of this broken situation. We can never awaken
to the grace of God if we do not realize that sometimes the world
is more of a nightmare than the dream of God. And so ash does remind us of
these difficult realities. But the ash also reminds us that God will redeem all
of Creation, dust and all. And this is Good News.
Today there is focus on two crosses. One is the cross of dust on your head, the other is a new crucifix that we’re using at St. Luke’s for the season of Lent. Both remind us of sin and death, both grieve us. And yet, both save us. Our brittle bodies, our failures, our toxic culture all can be made new through the purging fire of God’s love. The further down we can go into our ashen nature, the more fully we will find the mercy of God on the other side of Lent. Lent is not a season of joylessness, it is not a season devoid of hope, it is not a season of punishment. Instead, Lent is a season of preparation, it is a season to explore our souls, searching for the places where we most need the healing grace and mercy of God, it is a season to have our souls bless the Lord. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent. Amen.
Today there is focus on two crosses. One is the cross of dust on your head, the other is a new crucifix that we’re using at St. Luke’s for the season of Lent. Both remind us of sin and death, both grieve us. And yet, both save us. Our brittle bodies, our failures, our toxic culture all can be made new through the purging fire of God’s love. The further down we can go into our ashen nature, the more fully we will find the mercy of God on the other side of Lent. Lent is not a season of joylessness, it is not a season devoid of hope, it is not a season of punishment. Instead, Lent is a season of preparation, it is a season to explore our souls, searching for the places where we most need the healing grace and mercy of God, it is a season to have our souls bless the Lord. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent. Amen.
