We are here tonight to celebrate the beginning of the Lenten Season on this Ash Wednesday, 2005. As the ashes are imposed on our foreheads, we will hear again the words spoken by God to Adam, just after Adam and Eve committed the sin of disobedience to God that resulted in their being kicked out of the Garden of Eden. God said to Adam, “Remember, thou art dust and to dust you shall return!”
God was reminding Adam, and tonight we also are reminded, that we are mortal human beings, created out of the dust of the Earth, at the beginning of time. Almighty God took a handful of dust and fashioned a man made in God’s own image. But Adam was not yet alive. So God breathed life into him, and voila, there was the first human being. Yes, Adam was made from dust, earthly dust, by holy hands.
What awesome, intimate closeness there must have been at the moment Adam, the created, and God, the Creator, looked upon each other for the very first time. But we humans sometimes, actually far too often, forget where we come from. We forget that without God breathing life into us and sustaining us each day, we are nothing.
I am reminded of the portion of the funeral service that says, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. This is a stark reminder of where we, as human beings, came from, and where our mortal bodies shall one day return. It reminds us that without God, we are just like the little pile of ashes in the bowl that I will soon use to mark us as followers of Jesus Christ, redeemed by His blood, shed on the cross of Calvary.
You know that dust and ashes have very little intrinsic value. Actually, they are basically worthless, and they are most often a hindrance and messy liability. You can’t paint them and make them look pretty. You can’t spray perfume on them to make them smell good for any length of time. Pretty much, ashes are ashes and dust is dust. As much as we humans would like to think otherwise, the reality is that we are like that also.
Despite what the modern day gurus, the New Age preachers, a couple of false religions, and even some preachers in mainline church pulpits tell us to the contrary, the prophet Isaiah tells us in chapter 64, verse 6, of the book that carries his name, that when all is said and done, in God’s eyes, “all our righteousness is like filthy rags”. It is but perfume sprayed upon evil, decadent thoughts and feelings that are best left buried and forgotten.
Jesus searches each of us to find a contrite, repentant heart that recognizes its sinful nature and is ready to repent and turn to Him for forgiveness. I heard someone once ask on the street, “What’s up with the ashes on your head?” That is a great question. Why do we come together tonight and smear ashes on our foreheads? We do it because the ashes are to be a reminder of what we are. God said, “Remember you are dust, and unto dust you will return!”
There are those folks who really like to receive the ashes, but they are not so crazy about the words that accompany them. For you see, these words remind us that one day we too will die. None of us knows exactly when it will happen that we are called home to the Lord, and it is precisely for that reason that at this Lenten time of the Christian calendar, the Church presents to people the opportunity to meditate on this inevitable fact of life. For you see, while it is true we gather together this evening to remember who and what we are, we also come together tonight to remember who God is, and what He has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
God Almighty has provided us with a way out of our plight of simply being “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. That Way, His Way, the only Way, is through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross. Not for any sin He had committed, because Jesus Christ was the sinless Lamb of God. No, Jesus suffered and died for nothing that He had done, but rather, for all of the things we, you and I have done for all of the sins against God that we have committed. His sacrifice on that cross instantly assigned an infinite worth and value to us, for otherwise we are worthless human beings.
Yes, I am talking here about you and me. It is for us to understand this evening that God has given us a new life to replace the life that leads to the pit of ashes and the dust heap. God has given each and every one of us the opportunity to choose to accept, or to reject the sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered for us upon the cross. A sacrifice offered in our place, so that each of us can have life everlasting with God the Father and Jesus the Son, a life lived together with them in God’s Kingdom for eternity. All that God asks of us is that we remember that we, individually, are sinners, that we repent, accept His mercy, and believe in His Son and the salvation that only He offers. God then asks us to live a life based on His love and His goodness, rather than a life based on thoughts motivated by human pride, reward or praise.
God the Father, and Jesus, God the Son, have committed themselves to us. Together they have given us a sign of that commitment. That sign is the cross.
You ask, “What’s up with the ashes?” Well, we gather together tonight to take upon ourselves that sign, which shows the world our commitment to God and our acceptance of the Way that He has given us. Jesus says, “If you are ashamed of me before men, I shall be ashamed of you before My Father. But if you proclaim me before men, I shall proclaim you before My Father.” We need to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord whenever, wherever and however we can!
So tonight, we gather together and smear ashes on our foreheads to remember that the words of the Committal Service do not stop with “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. No, the words continue with “trusting in God’s great mercy by which we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” That’s why we do what we do this evening!
We need to remember our actions tonight! We need to remember those words of the Committal Service, for we, each one of us who has accepted Christ’s sacrifice for us, are born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ our Lord; a hope that comes to us only because of the grace, mercy and love of God for His people; a hope that comes only because God has acted in and through Jesus Christ to open the way to new life for all who repent of their sins and believe in the Good News that He, Jesus Himself, proclaimed!
I wish to conclude with a story of a little five-year-old girl who was baptized by having the sign of the cross made on her forehead with water. A little while after she was baptized, she turned to her father and asked, “Can you still see the cross on my forehead?” What a great question!
In fact, that is the exact question that we should ask sometime after tonight. For the answer to that question says everything about living a Christian life, the life of one who is a steward of God’s greatest gift, the cross.
Tonight, this evening of Ash Wednesday, is the perfect time to remember and reconnect with God through the new covenant provided by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Tonight is the perfect time to put our very being, and every area of our lives, some maybe for the first time in their lives, in the Light of the One who provides everlasting life, so that every day, not just on the Ash Wednesdays of our lives, people will be able to “see” the crosses on our foreheads. They will be able to “see” the cross, because in all that we say, and all that we do, we will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ and Christ in us.
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through His only Son, Jesus Christ! Amen and amen!