Rethinking Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is a time for confession, so here’s one for you: I confess that Ash Wednesday has never been one of my favorite Christian holidays. After all, who wants to be reminded of his sin and mortality? The words that are usually spoken when the ashes are placed on a worshiper’s forehead sound so grim: “From dust (or ashes) you have been made, and to dust (or ashes) you shall return.” 

When I recently read my father’s last two Ash Wednesday meditations, though, I learned that he had a surprisingly upbeat take on the meaning of the day. Here’s what he had to say that is causing me re-think my dour view of Ash Wednesday:

“Over and over again we read in the scriptures about Godly men and women who ‘repent in sackcloth and ashes.’ This is a sign of humility, not humiliation. That is, we need to realize that a realistic assessment of our worth in human terms depends on the grace of God and not our own doing. It is not that we are not worth something. The modern adage is true: ‘God doesn't make junk.’ To put it in scriptural terms, ‘God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.’ However, it is necessary to point out the underlying fact that God made it. The goodness is all derived goodness. We live in the glow of God’s reflected glory. God is love, and all love comes from God.

It is sin that has spoiled God’s creation. Sin twists and mars and makes ugly.  That is why we symbolize it with ashes on Ash Wednesday. The message of Ash Wednesday is negative in a positive sort of way. It says that only by taking a realistic and not inflated assessment of ourselves can we really make, by God’s grace, something worthwhile out of our lives.

*          *          *

The answer that, hopefully, we will learn along this Lenten journey which is before us is that God saves us not by condemning us but by loving us. We listen to Jesus as he stands by the woman caught in the act of adultery. He says to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’ [See John 8:1-11] The effect of his words is not to push her further down into the dirt, but to lift her up and help her believe in herself and what the power of God working in her can make of her. This is God’s way with us.

Yes, we are dust, but it is Almighty God who made us out of dust and breathed his own breath, his own Spirit, into us. To negate a human being is to blaspheme God the Creator. The way to raise a creature of dust to a new and higher level is to affirm what God has done and is doing in that person. This opens the door even wider for more of God’s transforming activity in that life. Being negative and judgmental never works. It only begets negativity, hostility, and finally hopelessness. On the other hand, the positive approach, the affirming word, begets openness to you, openness to God, and a new attitude of hope.

What grabs me most, what changes me down to my core, is the realization that God loved me and valued me so highly that he sent his son to die for me. He did that all for me! What affirmation I feel when I realize how far God was willing to go to save me. Can I do any less than so love and affirm you?”

So as I go to worship this Ash Wednesday, it will be with a new focus: God is calling me, through these ashes, to acknowledge that my worth comes from him as my Creator, not from my own efforts -- which are only possible because of God, after all. And what am I worth as God's creation? I'm worth the greatest sacrifice ever made, and so are you.

From: "Ash Wednesday Meditation" (1988 & 1989)