Wednesday, February 22, 2023
/Ash Wednesday
Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20b- 6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
We find ourselves here, on Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of our journey through the season of Lent. Lent is about honestly accounting for our sinful and broken lives while also accepting the fragility of our lives.
To acknowledge the simple – yet profound – truth of our sin and our mortality, we wear a mark upon our forehead – a simple cross of ashes. Ashes were used in the ancient world to express grief. For example, at the end of the book of Job, when God challenges Job to defend himself, Job knows that he cannot do so before God, so he simply says “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Elsewhere in scripture the prophet Jeremiah writes about the coming destruction of the city of Jerusalem, telling its inhabitants to “put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes.”
Our culture is one that remains staunchly uncomfortable in honestly expressing our grief and acknowledging our inevitable deaths. Our funeral industry profits in dressing up the dead as if they were still living, coloring their faces with makeup to give an appearance – however false – that blood still is pumping through their bodies. We cover up dirt at the graveside with astroturf because, according to what I have heard those in the funeral industry, the very sight of dirt, that will later be shoveled onto a casket – is unsightly, and causes funeral attendees discomfort.
However often we keep death at a distance - there are times when embracing mortality is unavoidable, such as when we see images of the damage wrought by the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The earthquake has reminded us – yet again – of our fragility and mortality. Beyond that, the damage levied by the earthquake reminds us – starkly - that nothing we build lasts forever, a theme explored in Percy Blythe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” which I will now read:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
In honor of our impermanence and in honor of our mortality, we today take the ashcross upon our forehead. We bear this mark as witness to the world and to ourselves that through death we live, through humbling ourselves, we rise, and that in giving away our lives – we receive them.
My wife and I recently purchased a niche in a columbarium where we will one day be placed whenever we may die. After our bodies are cremated, our ashes will be placed in the columbarium niche which is in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, in view of many of the mountains we enjoy hiking. Elk and deer are mill through the columbarium. On bright side, I now get to say that Marla and I are proud owners of a home in Colorado, the downside being that have to die first before we get to move in.
That is not so bad. The Christian faith is built upon that very idea – dying is not something to fear or dread. I believe that there is much beyond this life, and I choose to believe the promise of the Bible which proclaims that our destiny is to receive a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. We do not go quietly into the night. We die boldly in assurance our God will receive us. AMEN.