Ash Wednesday - Gill Tayleur

Ash Wednesday. We’ve heard the call to self examination and repentance, by fasting and self denial. We’re going have ashes put on our foreheads – those who want to – to remind us we’re going to die. Is it any wonder some people find Ash Wednesday depressing?! Maybe some of us do?

I can understand why you might think it’s depressing, this focus on sin and death, it’s not exactly a bundle of laughs. But I’d like to suggest it doesn’t have to be depressing; it can be refreshing! And it can even be liberating! Refreshing, and liberating, in a way that only the truth can be. 

Facing up to the truth about sin, and the truth about death, can be a relief. It can liberate us from pretence and denial. And we can be liberated from the power of sin and death too!

Our culture tries to deny ageing and death. It tells us we can go on and on – and stay ooking and feeling young! – with the right combination of cosmetics, superfoods, exercise, yoga, luxury holidays, hair dye and elective surgery. With enough money we can stretch, inject, massage and vacuum out enough skin and fat – as to appear that we haven’t actually lived each day of our lives consecutively since birth. And it’s all very tempting, especially to me as a middle aged woman!

Yet we all know that after buying into all the anti-aging solutions society has to offer, we won’t actually be younger. (And we won’t actually look properly younger in my view; we’ll just look a bit shiny and misshapen.  Which all feels like a metaphor for all our pathetic attempts at immortality.)

Deep down inside we know we’re going to die. We just like to try and forget it, we like to pretend we’re not. So I think it’s a refreshing and liberating thing we and Christians all over the world do today. We gather to remind each other of the truth. To remind each other of our mortality. We tell each other the inescapable truth that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Those are the words Cameron will use in a few minutes for those who would like ash on their forehead. 

In the middle of our society’s anxiety and denial about ageing and death, on Ash Wednesday we just blurt out the truth as if it wasn’t upsetting or offensive.  But the thing is, these truths we speak tonight about sin and our mortality might be upsetting, but they’re not the last word. Sin and death are not the last word.

Very briefly, let’s consider each of them. But as we do so, the great thing about facing this kind of truth, is we stop pretending – And as we do so, we can finally breathe out and relax.  It’s like we stop having to spiritually hold our stomach in. Tonight we stop pretending. We stop denying the truth. The truth about our sin and brokenness, and the truth about our mortality.

First then, sin. Deep down we all know we’re sinful. We all know we don’t always behave as we’d like to: examples from our gospel reading include our motivations, even when doing something good like giving to the needy, wanting to be seen and given credit for it. We lose our temper, out slips a lie, we join in the gossip or laughter at someone’s expense – oh and much worse. Indeed there are many things we would be ashamed of if other people knew about them. In a few minutes we’ll own up to some of them in the Litany of Penitence.

And it’s really important that we do. We’re so good, so very very good, at making excuses. Everyone does it! It wasn’t my fault, I was provoked! It’s only natural, only human. It’s not as bad as what other people do! And so on.

Tonight’s a night for truthfulness, for honestly recognising our sin for what it is, for taking responsibility for it. We’ve heard the call to “self examination and repentance”. We’ve already read Psalm 51 together, with its heartfelt contrition.

BUT. But sin isn’t the last word, God’s mercy and forgiveness is. You’ve probably heard me say it before, but I love repentance! Repentance is a gift! Repentance is liberating! Because it’s only when we own up honestly to our sin, and repent of it, turn from it, that we can be forgiven and freed from it! So owning up to our sin tonight, truly taking it seriously, and taking responsibility for it, truly choosing to turn around and start moving in the opposite direction, in the context of God’s forgiveness, can be a great relief. Thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross, as we’ll be celebrating at Communion shortly, God’s mercy, his pardon, his forgiveness, are on offer, as we’ll hear in the words of the absolution. And so is God’s power to change. After the words about ashes, Cameron will say “Turn away from your sin and be faithful to Christ.”

So, facing up to the truth about our sin can be liberating. Just being honest about it, rather than pretending, is liberating. Receiving God’s mercy and forgiveness, is certainly liberating. And having the Holy Spirit’s power to change us from the inside, is indeed liberating.

So, I think, facing up to the truth about sin on Ash Wednesday needn’t be depressing, it can be liberating.

Second, death. We are all going to die. As Benjamin Franklin so famously said, only 2 things in life are certain, death and taxes. Tonight we have this sombre reminder of our mortality, for a good reason: One day we will go and meet our maker, ready or not, and it would be better to be ready, than not! As the old American sign said bluntly, “Get right with God, or get left  by God.”

But like sin, death too isn’t the last word! Jesus’ resurrection has given us the firm hope of eternal life, of fullness of life, now and forever. There’s so much we don’t understand about eternal life, about life after death, about so called heaven. It’s literally beyond our human earth-bound minds to comprehend it. What we do know, is that there will be no more suffering or pain, or crying or death. Jesus promised “I am the resurrection & the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, & everyone who lives & believes in me will never die”.

So the ashes we will receive on our foreheads in a few minutes remind us of our death, but they’re not the last word. 

There are some interesting ideas around the connections between Ash Wednesday and death, and this is one I find helpful. Picture your life as a long piece of cloth, with your birth at one end, 

and your death at the other. We don’t know how long the cloth is, how long there is between the two. For many of us, there’s our baptism at one end and our funeral at the other. Imagine pinching the cloth together in the middle, so that the birth and death, the baptism in the past and the funeral in the future, meet. The place where they meet is Ash Wednesday. The cloth of our lives is bunched up, so the dust we’ve come from, and the dust we’ll return to, meet on Ash Wednesday, as that dust is put on our foreheads in the shape of a cross. A cross, that reminds us of the cross drawn on our foreheads at baptism, and the accompanying words of being cleansed from sin, words of hope and new life.  And the words that will be spoken at our funerals, more words of hope and new life, and the cross at our burial or cremation. 

Tonight’s ash cross on our foreheads, reminds us of both these things, baptism and funeral, birth and death. They’re so wrapped up together. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We come from God and to God we shall go. The ash reminds us of our sin and death. The cross reminds us of God’s mercy, forgiveness, liberation and new life, which outlast our sin, outlast our earthly bodies and the limits of time.

So what? How might this effect the way we live in Lent? Lent isn’t just about giving things up, ungodly things, helpful though that can be. Neither is it just about taking things up, Godly things, helpful though that can be! It’s also about facing and embracing the truth. It’s about cutting through the lies of our pretence and our death defying culture. It’s about peeling away the things, yes those ungodly things, which keep us from the truth, the truth about ourselves and about God and his forgiveness and liberation. 

In Psalm 51 we read, “you desire truth in the inner parts.” Jesus said in John 8, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

The truth is we are deeply broken, sinful, but deeply beloved, forgiven, children of God. Surely that’s not depressing?! What’s depressing is the desperation of trying to pretend otherwise. What’s depressing is to insist that I can overcome sin – I can improve myself! – (and maybe death too, “I can stay so-called young!”),  I just haven’t managed to pull it off yet! Surely kidding ourselves with lies like that is depressing.

No, tonight’s truths can be liberating. So as you receive these ashes and hear the promise that you are dust and to dust you shall return, know that it is the truth and that the truth will set us free in a way that nothing else ever can.

Let us Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. Amen.