Ash Wednesday: 

• For those who find—or once found—comfort, inspiration, or challenge in the ritual of familiar church liturgy,
• and those of us who were nurtured in Christian churches that are not in the liturgical tradition,
• and even those with little or no background in church life,

many of us know that on this day—all over the country, all over the world—people will stand or kneel and have ashes placed on their foreheads in the sign of a cross.  And we probably also know that this is the first day of the season of Lent, that traditional period of self-examination, repentance and, for some, of fasting and self-denial. 

We may or may not know that the use of ashes was an ancient Near Eastern custom that is mentioned numerous times in the Hebrew scriptures, perhaps the earliest occurrence of which is found in the final poetic passage at the end of the book of Job, where Job, having been rebuked by God and having confessed his humility before matters beyond his understanding, says: “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  The Christian use of the ashes goes back to the early centuries of the church and Ash Wednesday itself is mentioned in liturgical documents as early as the 8^th Century.  So much for the facts.

But what do they mean, these ashes?  Since the minister or priest applies the ashes while speaking the words, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return,” they are clearly a reminder of our mortality, of our human limitations, and that we are all creatures of the earth; and since from ancient times the ashes were used as a manifestation of repentance, they are as obviously a reminder of our imperfections and our shortcomings, by whatever moral standards we might accept. And so the ashes are a symbol.  Our lives—and our faith, if we embrace one—are replete with symbols and I deeply believe that they are crucially important at many levels of our lives  and are capable of eliciting from us meaningful experiences.  So what might the symbol of these ashes mean on a personal level—whether we actually have them applied in a sanctuary setting or not—and what might they have to do with you and with me should we choose to take their symbolism seriously?

To speak of repentance, for example, may conjure up images of remorse, regret, shame or even, as Job says, of self-despising.  And we have probably all felt that way, perhaps appropriately, from time to time, when the “pull of the rut” overpowers our best intentions.  But repentance isn’t about self-loathing—really it isn’t.  It’s about changing—which is what the word means— about becoming what we are meant to be: about turning, not just away from something, but to something.  What we are to turn away from is a question each of us can only answer for ourselves, but if on this Ash Wednesday we were to take the notion seriously—whether we participate in the ritual or not—what is it we are to turn to? 

I am intimidated by the question even as I ask it, because there are so many more answers than I have the wisdom or the time to explore, so I just choose one approach and leave you to answer the question in ways more profound and personal.

In several of my previous blogs, particularly in the series on “Knowing and Believing,” I have been clear and open that —theological issues aside— I am bonded to the model that Jesus provided in his life and teachings by valuing above all human persons and human relationships; but I am linked as well to those persons that seek to mirror the best of Jesus’s legacy, both those who acknowledge him as a model and those who don’t, but live and behave as though they did.

Surely, then, the season of Lent leads us to embrace the invitation of Jesus to ‘follow me.”  And you can now roll your eyes and say, “Well, of course.”  And what does it mean to do that? 

As Paul Scherer observes, there is an assumption on the part of some that everything Jesus said was easy to understand—there’s the Sermon on the Mount, after all, and the prayer he taught his disciples.  And yet the gospel record is insistent that he was constantly misunderstood.  His contemporaries mistook his spirit, they twisted his words to suit themselves, they failed to get his meaning—even those who loved him most seemed to be in a haze about half the time.  And ever since, people have been taking him this way and that, justifying with his words the most wildly incompatible behaviors—note the examples in the current political climate—sometimes quarreling, always wondering. 

A simplicity to Jesus?  We haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet.  So do we always know what it means to follow Jesus ?  No, but we are certainly not without clues.

 We are called upon to bear witness not to our own goodness but to a way of life, to principles and goals that are higher than our practice, to a reach that often exceeds our grasp.  That is why we qualify, in Elton Trueblood’s phrase, as “the company of the committed” rather than the company of the righteous or the self-righteous. 

As Fosdick, many years ago, taught me with a metaphor, we are a little like flagpoles.  Some are very tall, prominent and ornate, some small and plain, but the glory of the flagpole is not in itself, but in the colors that it flies.  So we may well be ashamed we are not better, taller, straighter flagpoles, but we need not be ashamed of the colors we fly.  And Jesus did not leave us in doubt about the principle above all others to which we should bear witness, the color we should fly: “by this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”   Finally, then, something simple, right?  Clear, yes.  But simple?  Not really. 

Caring love is neither simple nor easy.  We don’t always know for sure which course of action is the loving one or when “tough love” is called for.  We are not relieved of the necessity for hard thinking and the responsibility for value judgments in this situation or that.  For example, as I pointed out in a previous blog close to a year ago, if Jesus valued persons above all else as boundless in possibilities; if Jesus believed and modeled that—as I think he did—and I am to model that, is that simple in its application to the decisions I must make in my life?  Oh, no!  It’s complicated.  If you believe that, it will churn your insides when you look at what the world around you does to persons.  It will set up choices that are not simple at all; it may sometimes cause you to go against the grain of work life, of institutional life, of political life, sometimes of church life.   

We do know what guides us and what we are trying to discover, but living that out can’t be reduced to a set of rules, a simple list of dos and don’ts. And the more authentically and energetically we devote ourselves to the journey of following Jesus, the higher the demand upon our energies and our reserves.  Where do we find the inner resources adequate for outward demand?

 Some 55 years ago, I lived in a parsonage whose water supply depended upon a cistern.  It was fine as long as enough water was being fed to it by rain or, failing that, by a water truck, but it had no resources of its own.  Have we ever felt like that—like our reserves are limited, like we couldn’t stand a prolonged drought?  And don’t we long to feel, not like a cistern, but like an artesian well, with resources that run deep, not at all at the mercy of circumstance?

If such an experience of unfailing inner supply is really possible, it would be the enabling power for all the energetic and active tasks that life presses upon us.  If we are to live out the practical, behavioral side of our commitment to “the best” that we find in the life and teachings of Jesus, as well as in those persons who inspire us to be the servants of the profound needs of the human family—the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the repressed—the servants of justice and mercy to which we are called by the great traditions of the Hebrew prophets, then we need to be possessed of an inner peace unshaken by the chaos around us. 

But no one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it.  Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up, an awareness of reserves beyond ourselves, so that power is not so much in us as through us.  This kind of peace, strength, and power is the gift, not of willful struggle, but of simple hospitality to great ideas, to beauty, to inspiration, to meditation–of hospitality to the life and teachings of Jesus and to persons “at their best.” Cisterns are anxious; wells have peace.

If we choose to follow the Lenten journey that begins in ashes—with or without the ritual—we will be lead inevitably to recall that even Jesus reached the place in his life where all his stress on practical service would not fill the bill.  What saw him through was something underground, not visible to the eye—his roots.

The duties to which we are called these days demand those deep roots that tap the well-springs of inner resources of strength and power.  Action, yes— determined, courageous, tireless action—but all the more because of that, we need those inner resources that only hospitality to the highest can supply.  May it be so for you, and for me.

Sources to which I am indebted:

Bateman, William Cody.  “What is Repentance?: Spiritual Meditations.”  blog.cyberbreezes.com

Bucher, Richard.  “The History and Meaning of Ash Wednesday.” orlutheran.comFosdick,

Harry Emerson.  Living Under Tension. New York: Harper, 1941

Scherer, Paul. “Exposition of Luke,” The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8, p. 378