The Rev. Thomas R. Cook
“The Essence in the Ashes”
A Sermon for Ash Wednesday – February 17, 2010
The Rev.Thomas R. Cook
Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Ash Wednesday C
Have you ever really tried to understand the essence of Ash Wednesday, to describe what makes it so poignant, that unambiguous thing without which you just couldn’t really have Ash Wednesday? I suppose it’s sort of obvious to think the essence is in the ashes themselves, that stark and somber reminder of our mortality, the dust that we are, the dust to which we shall return. Or perhaps we feel the essence of Ash Wednesday is found in our deep remorse, our sorrow for those things we have done which we ought not to have done, or things left undone which we ought to have done. Or maybe it’s in repentance and absolution, a new beginning, a clean slate, a new direction, a turn away from all those habits that drag us down.
Death, sin, remorse, contriteness, repentance, absolution – these all are surely things which make Ash Wednesday what it is. But I don’t know that we have come to the heart of the matter just yet
Death, sin, remorse, contriteness, repentance, absolution – these all are surely things which make Ash Wednesday what it is.
You know I spend a fair amount of time thinking about Lent before we ever get to Lent. I’m a priest; it comes with the territory: looking ahead, getting ready for what comes next in the life of Church. But as I was running around with Lent on my mind this past Sunday, I learned an unexpected lesson, and I learned it in a series of visits with our children in their Sunday School classes. See, on this past Sunday just before Lent, many of the classes were studying the story of Jesus and the ten lepers who came to him to be healed. Not a story we ordinarily associate with Ash Wednesday. But I was reminded by the children that when the lepers had gone their way and their disease was healed, their skin was cleansed, only one ---just one of the ten--- turned back, sought out Jesus, and offered heartfelt thanks. Only one. And with Ash Wednesday on my mind, it set me to thinking…
How often we come together in this place of worship and seek comfort and solace, healing for hurting bodies or spirits, forgiveness for causing some brokenness or pain to others we love. And how often we actually receive what we seek: a kind and unexpected word of support and love; the lifting of some great burden through the pronouncement of absolution and the constant reminder that God forgives us our sins and loves us despite any shortcomings; the strength to be reconciled to others we have hurt or who have hurt us. We find life here; we find goodness and healing.
So what, then, are we about on Ash Wednesday? Is it all mourning and weeping and remorse and death? No. I would like to believe that the church gathered on this somber occasion at the beginning of this somber season is something like that one leper who had the presence of mind and heart to go back to Jesus and say, “Thank you.” By the ashes upon our foreheads and the remembrance of our mortality, we say “thank you.” Through all the hurt we have experienced or the hurt we have caused, we haven’t forgotten we must say “thank you.” Though burdened by our sin, we have the strength still to say “thank you.” By a sincere desire to amend our way of life for good, we are saying “thank you.”
By the ashes upon our foreheads and the remembrance of our mortality, we say “thank you.”
It isn’t that life is easy. It isn’t that there is no real suffering in our lives or in the world, things for which thanksgiving seems absolutely absurd. There is much that is indeed wrong in our world for which we must ask the grace and healing of God. And ask we can; that is our gift from God. Remembering we are but dust is also a way to remember that life is very precious, and we are put in mind to remember that sin remains in the world, and we are called to remember the plight of the suffering and the distressed. And we remember that for all that is broken, that we have broken, we can say, “Please, God, forgive”, and for all that is good in life, we can say with ashes upon our foreheads, “Please, God, accept our thanks.” Thanks for life, for forgiveness, for love. This is the essence in the ashes