Ash Wednesday 2024
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Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
I shared this quote with you from Dr Lisa Hancock who writes helpful worship resources for the United Methodist Church.
We must encounter our sinfulness and frailty not with shame and blame but with honesty and truth, trusting that God receives our confession.
I don’t have along sermon to preach - just a reflection on something we don’t much like.
Sin
Sin
On Ash Wednesday we do something a bit strange.
We proudly smudge some ash on our foreheads at the beginning of the day to signify that Lent has begun.
It makes me think of that book you might have read in High School. The Scarlet Letter. In the book Hester Prynne has to wear a big scarlet ‘A’ for Adulterer wherever she goes.
A - Adulterer
A - Able
It is the village and church’s way of shunning and shaming her.
But because of her goodness the A is transformed - soon the people in the village forget that it stands for Adulterer - they start to think it stands for something else because of the way Hester triumphs over her circumstances.
It seems like a fairly strange theme for a book - until you realise it was written in the 1850s.
In our case today - A is for Ashes.
And I won’t make an A on your forehead - just a cross.
A cross in ash.
Ash
Cross
Ash
Cross
In the Bible when people repented they would often cover themselves with ash.
5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Ashes symbolise our frailty and maybe - when people covered themselves with ashes they were really saying to God - I deserve whatever destruction you might want to rain down on me.
I am just a big old pile of dirt.
Or as Abraham would say when he is interceding for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah:
Genesis 18:27 (NRSV)
27 Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.
In the words of Abraham - we are but dust and ashes.
Fleeting - passing - a little bit feeble.
We’re not supposed to say that out loud.
We live in a world that so greatly values power and prosperity - that we’re not meant to remember that we are dust and ashes.
Let alone say we’re just dust and ashes.
And beyond the world we live in - sometimes our life in church is in some way in service of denying the fact that we are just:
DUST and ASHES
So we’ve got the Ash part down - but there is another thing.
We’re not throwing ash over our heads today.
We’re not following the description in Isaiah 58:5 lying in sackcloth and ashes.
The Old Testament folks would think we were a bit conservative and boring - taking this tiny thumb full of ash and squishing it on our foreheads.
But we’re making the shape of a cross.
I need to remind you of Psalm 103:13-14…
Psalm 103:13–14 (NRSV)
13 As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
14 For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
As a father has compassion for his children so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.
Instead of throwing ashes over our heads - we just take a thumb - and dip it in ash - ash made from burnt palm crosses.
And we don’t throw it over our heads - we make it in the shape of a cross.
Psalm 103:14 For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
Ashes because we’re sinners.
The shape of a cross - because God knows we are sinners.
The shape of a cross - because -
Psalm 103:13 As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
That ash - was meant to be a sign of our shame.
But it isn’t - instead of being shamed - we can boast.
As Paul says:
9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
You’re a Sinner (Ash) and its OK (Cross)
You’re a Sinner (Ash) and its OK (Cross)
So here we are.
Just as we are.
Dust and Ashes
with a God who knows just what we are
with a God who loves us just like that
and sends his son to live with us and save us by dying on the cross and rising again.
This lent I invite you to become familiar with your frailty.
And more than your frailty - become more familiar with the grace that God offers us in our frailty.
In the words of Dr Hancock let us:
“encounter our sinfulness and frailty not with shame and blame but with honesty and truth, trusting that God receives our confession.”