February 21, 2007 Joel 2:1-2, 12-18

Ash Wednesday

"ASHES TO ASHES"

Every Ash Wednesday I am reminded of a lesson I tried to teach to the kids at Wednesday Night Live, our mid-week study and fellowship program. About five or six years ago the staff decided to demonstrate to the children how we got the ashes that we use on Ash Wednesday. For those of you who may not know, those ashes come from burning the left-over palms from the last year’s Palm Sunday service.

I volunteered to be the teacher and official demonstrator. On a table in fellowship hall I took a huge aluminum salad bowl from the kitchen. I gathered the children around the table as I crushed the dried palms and let them fall into the bowl. One of my fellow-staff members was concerned that the palms might not burn when lighted, so he suggested that I have a can of lighter fluid nearby. I had the can of fluid nearby, but I was confident that the palms would catch fire without any help. Boy, was I right!

I struck the match, dropped it into the bowl of dried, crushed palm leaves, and watched as the fire went "whoosh" and burned up all the palms in seconds with flames that reached the sky-high ceiling in fellowship hall. The leaping flames of fire set off the silent smoke detectors, which none of us realized at that time. What we did realize is that most of the boys were super-excited as they went, "Oh, yeah! Fire!" while many of the girls ran to their parents screaming in fear.

What we soon realized is that that fire detectors worked, because two massive fire trucks with sirens blaring pulled onto South Street and fire fighters in full equipment barged through the doors and into the church ready to drown what they thought was an inferno. At that moment one of our church members had run to the nearest fire extinguisher and was spraying the table with fire-quenching foam. To me, the whole situation was humorous. But not everyone viewed it as I did, and especially after we got the bill from the fire department for a false alarm! Boy, am I glad that I didn’t use the lighter fluid! Needless to say, Ash Wednesday at Pine Street has not been the same since—at least to me.

I learned something from this incident, and it is not that you should not torch dried vegetation indoors. What I learned is the significance of ashes. Now, I had participated in many Ash Wednesdays before this one. And yet I had never given much thought to this important Christian symbol.

What I remember from that night, besides the antics of the demonstration, was how the ashes felt to my touch. To my surprise, the ashes were not fine or soft but rather were gritty and course. You will be happy to know that we do not prepare our own ashes for Ash Wednesday services. Instead we purchase ashes that have been specially prepared for this service. Those store-bought ashes are refined and smooth and compacted. But the ashes that I felt in the bowl were raw and uneven and rough.

I distinctly remember that they had a gritty feeling. They remind me of the sand that some of us scattered this past week on icy, snowy patches of sidewalk and road. Like that sand the ashes that we receive today give us traction. On the one hand, these ashes cause us to slow down. They remind us of our need to take time to think about our faith and our life. But on the other hand, these gritty ashes make our steps steady, sure, and purposeful. They mark us as children of God, assure us that we have a future, and give meaning to our present journey.

To most of us ashes symbolize endings. They are the residue of what has been consumed. It is what’s left over, what remains behind. Ashes represent the conclusion of a life. As we say at funerals, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The ashes we use on this holy day symbolize the end of ordinary time in the Christian calendar.

But ashes symbolize new beginnings as well. Ashes compose the fertile ground out of which new life springs. The ashes that we use on this holy day inaugurate the new season of Lent. And the ashes that we place on our foreheads today symbolize our new life in Christ, our desire to witness to our faith publicly, and our acknowledgement of the temporal nature of our existence.

The ashes that we use on this holy day are powerful symbols of a life that was given for us, a life that gives us hope and joy and meaning. As we enter this season of Lent, let us take up this ashen cross with pride and humility as we seek to follow our Lord Jesus in the coming days, months, and years.