Ash Wednesday

Some years, I do not feel ready for Ash Wednesday or Lent until I have gotten through the liturgy for the day. In those years, when I walk out of the church into the evening, I can say, ‘Now I am into Lent.’ Other years, I am already beyond Ash Wednesday, way into the desert of Lent so that the day serves more as a reminder of where I ought to begin and what I might do to keep the Lent I have already begun for whatever reason there is.

Ash Wednesday seems to me as much of a paradox as Good Friday, if not more so. Of all the days of the year, Ash Wednesday makes us confront our finitude, our mortality, and what it means to be human. I think, in some ways, we are forced to look at what theologian John Maquarrie calls our ‘creatureliness’ even more so on Ash Wednesday than on Good Friday.

The entire Ash Wednesday liturgy from start to finish reminds us of our limits — morally, spiritually and physically. The opening collect states unequivocally that we are sinners who are in need of lamenting what we have done wrong. It adds that the only way we are forgiven is through God’s grace and endless mercy. The litany of penitence, which follows the imposition of ashes, details the many ways in which we have sinned against God, our neighbour and ourselves. It is sobering to confess, as a community and as individuals, those many short-comings.

After the lessons, we move into the exhortation to keeping Lent, an exhortation which reminds us of the various actions which have become part of the Lenten season over the centuries: preparation for baptism at the Easter Vigil, and the penitence, fasting and instruction which that preparation entailed; the discipline and penitence of those who, through their sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful.

Then the liturgy moves us to the imposition of ashes, an action which, through time and cultures, has represented grief, sorrow, and repentance. Scattered throughout the Bible are references to people putting on sackcloth and throwing ashes on their heads as a sign of mourning. But the ashes also represent whereof we come. The optional prayer of blessing of the ashes states: ‘Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence.’

I cannot come to either this prayer or the imposition of ashes without having an automatic response, which bumps me from the liturgy of Ash Wednesday to the prayer of commendation that we use at the end of the burial office. I will be saying it tomorrow at Arnie’s burial office, making the prayer all the more immediate. That prayer, used for one and all, and offered to God, states:

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of humankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

And therein is the paradox of both Ash Wednesday for me. Just as the grave is not the end of our mortal story, neither is Ash Wednesday or our Lenten journey to the cross the end. There is more.

It is true: We are mortal. We will die. We will return to dust. We do have limits. We don’t like it, but we do. Some of those limits result in our sinning. Some of our limits cause us to rebel against God. Eventually, those limits will determine our life and our death. While we will never know the measure of our years — even King David could not pry that answer out of God — we can be sure we will reach the end of this mortal life, pass through death and move to the greater life promised us. Death is pretty heavy stuff to have to contemplate and, as a culture, we categorically avoid thinking about it. We did for a brief period in the fall of 2001, but my sense is most of the country has pretty much moved beyond the shock and horror of September 11th and resumed its quest of youth.

But spiritual and physical limits are our reality and we need to look at them honestly. That critical and honest looking at our failings and our mortality is the power of Ash Wednesday and Lent.

Sin and death are not the end for us. The grave is not the end either. Though we return to dust, we then enter into a larger reality, that reality that we only see dimly right now. The promise we have that goes beyond the grave is the resurrection. And the resurrection is not only where our Lenten journey leads us year in and year out, but also where our entire life journey leads us from the moment we were born, from the moment of our birth in Christ at our baptism, to our mortal end.

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On the First Sunday after Epiphany, we heard about God’s love for us and how God has chosen us. We heard the remarkable story of Jesus’ baptism and about God’s love for humankind that is so extraordinary that God would become incarnate in our flesh and walk our path. We remembered that at the time Jesus is baptised, a voice from heaven proclaims, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen.’ And we are, too. It is in our being God’s beloved and God’s chosen children, that we can confront the reality of our mortality.

It is in being God’s beloved and chosen children that we were created out of the dust by a loving God and will return to the dust so that we might fully connect with our loving God.

For some of us today, receiving the cross of ashes on our forehead may be comforting, a sign that reminds us that despite our finitude, God loves us. For others of us, the cross of ashes may simply be too close to home, reminding us of our finitude that, for all its wonders, does have its heavy costs. No matter where you are today, during the imposition of ashes, as you hear the powerful mantra, ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,’ also remember God’s promise, ‘You are my beloved, my Chosen.’

It is that knowledge of being chosen that will help us endure the knowledge of our limitations. Because we are God’s chosen, for ever and ever.