Ash Wednesday 2018
Blow the trumpet!
Sound the alarm! The reading from
the Old Testament prophet Joel certainly catches the abrupt and urgent moment
that we experience in Ash Wednesday. If
we have been sailing along since Christmas on autopilot, this Ash Wednesday
catches us up short, takes us by the shoulder with a good shake. Wake up!
The enemy is at the gates. It’s
time to face the music.
In the 23rd chapter of Matthew Jesus calls the
Pharisees and Rabbi’s who have been debating him “whitewashed sepulchers.” Painted tombs. Bright and colorful and attractive on the
outside, but filled with corruption and darkness and death on the inside.
And it is a compelling image. So much of life about putting up a good
front. Maintaining appearances. Pretending to be fine, in great shape, when
deep down we know the truth. The truth
anyway of what the Bible has to say about our condition and nature and
character as human beings. Which is to
say that what Jesus said about those Pharisees and Rabbi’s is in reality true
for all of us. A paper thin veneer where
we pretend to be what we aren’t. Where
we live in denial.
So today, Ash Wednesday we make that turn on the journey of
the Holy Story, the road ahead of us moving directly to Jerusalem. Holy Week.
Good Friday. The Cross. And the realization that the right way for us
to travel this road, this spiritual journey, the only way actually to get to
where we need to be six weeks from now, is to take every step, one step after
another, on our knees. Emptying
ourselves of the illusion, the delusion, that somehow we deserve to ride in
style. The only way to get to the place
we need to be at the foot of the cross, to scrape off the false front. Give it a power wash. Sandpaper and steel wool if that’s what it
takes. To a fresh understanding of the
truth that gives the cross its meaning.
That we are dust and ashes.
Nothing pretty about us, deep down.
Nothing lovable. Nothing worth
paying attention to. Nothing worth
saving.
And that it is for dust and ashes, for this heap of nothing,
with nothing to commend it, with no value of its own, that he came down from
heaven. For dust and ashes, he gave
himself up for us. Nothing in it for him
except the perfection of his grace and peace and love. His nature. The great Good Friday hymn “Ah, Holy Jesus”
ends this way. “Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I do adore
thee, and will ever pray thee, think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, not
my deserving.”
When the ashes come at this service, it’s not so much as if
something is being placed upon us, as though we are being marked or
disfigured. It’s more that what we
really are is being exposed to the light.
For just a moment or two. Again,
at the beginning of Lent.
So, blow the trumpet, sound the alarm. Again, it is simply my prayer that in the
weeks ahead we may walk the road to Jerusalem and Holy Week faithfully
together, and that as we come to the cross we may be refreshed in the knowledge
of his grace and love. As St. Paul says,
“that while we were yet sinners,” he died for us.
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