Ash Wednesday - "To"
/“To”
Ashes to Ashes. Dust to dust. It’s a refrain we repeat every year at the beginning of Lent and this year, I’m struck by how much is contained in those little letters—“to.” Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust. All that we know, and love, and experience is merely in between our beginning and ending as dust. All of our worries, our stress, our anger, our hurt, and our pain—a momentary “to.” It’s kind of infuriating. Life is hard! And life is beautiful! And you’re telling me, that its merely a blip in the history of time in God’s eyes! If we’re all just dust on our way to becoming dust again, what is the point of any of it?
But it’s also kind of a relief. That coworker that drives you nuts? Merely dust. The family member who knows how to push every button and open wound on your heart? Merely dust. The worries of this world? Merely dust.
Yet, there is another phrase that has been rolling around in the back of my mind all week that comes from Brief Statement of Faith, the last in our book of Confessions. It begins with a line that I cannot forget, “in life and death, we belong to God.” These words have come up over and over again, in children’s time, in Sunday worship, at a funeral, and now again today. “In life and death, we belong to God.” This is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith—our whole existence can be summed up in those two little letters, but our first identity is always and forever beloved children of the Creator of the Universe; an identity far more powerful than two little letters in between ashes and dust. In life and in death, we belong to God.
Lent brings these worlds together—life and death. While we walk each day closer and closer to the cross and Christ’s death on Good Friday, we contemplate our own mortality. We are uncomfortably reminded someday, there will be a funeral for each of us. Our lives will end, and we will exist only in the memories of those who knew us. It may sound bleak. Where is the hope, Laura?
I think the hope is hiding in plain sight. As it turns out, contemplating our mortality is actually a very healthy thing to do. Researchers have found that people who think about their death on a regular basis are happier than people who avoid all thoughts of death. When we remember that will we die, we find it easier to focus on what really matters. We gain perspective that can be hard to remember in the heat of the moment. It can be hard to remember to contemplate death every day, so of course, there’s an app for that! It’s called “We Croak” and it will send you reminders at 5 random moments throughout the day that simply say, “remember you will die someday.”
As Christians, we do not celebrate death. Ash Wednesday is not about morbidity but the reminder that we have nothing to fear in death. We still have sadness in the face of the death of our loved ones or even our eventual death. We mourn that death robs us of more time with those we love; that it comes far too early and far too painfully for so many. We may hate death. We may despise it. We may be overwhelmed by death. But the one thing we do need to be is afraid. Because in life and in death, we belong to God.
Author and Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber describes Ash Wednesday this way, “If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and we don’t know the distance between the two, then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle and the ends are held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet. And in the meeting, we are reminded of promises: That we are God’s and that there is no sin, no darkness, and yes, no grave that God will no come to find us in and love us back to life.”
During this Lenten season, I invite you to bravely meet God in this special place wherein the fullness of time, life and death meet. Where we ask, “God, can you really breathe life into this dust?” Lenten practices are about deepening our relationship to God and allowing God to further shape us into the image of Jesus. So, we align our hearts with the suffering of Jesus and walk each day toward crucifixion. The practices, mindsets, and prayers we pray this season lead us not only to Good Friday but these practices help us to experience the miracle and unending joy of the resurrection. The paradox of this life is that we know the fullness of joy because we have experienced sorrow. As you enter into Lent, know that to be made from dust is to be made very good in the image of God.
As we prepare to receive the ashes, hear this poem from author Jan Richardson,
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
