“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” In a few minutes, you will hear those words as a cross made from the ashes of Palm Sunday palms is made on your forehead.
How do you hear those words? What feelings do they stir in you?
Perhaps they stir regret––that you have not made the most of your life, and that one day you will be dead and what will be left to remember?
Perhaps these words stir sorrow, that you have tried your best yet, as Ecclesiastes nevertheless reminds us, “all is vanity.”
Perhaps they stir resolve. That this year you will make the most of it, and you will be a better person, and truly live as Jesus tells us. That you are determined to immerse yourself in the traditional disciplines of Lent - fasting, prayer, repentance, and almsgiving.
Perhaps these words stir fear. Maybe this year they touch a little close to home, and the reminder that we are all mortals and destined to die is a heavy burden that you simply are unable to face right now.
Or perhaps these words give you relief. Maybe you are tired of trying to make yourself more, of trying to “live your best life,” and these words relieve you of the impossible expectations you’ve been living under.
Whatever these words stir in you, we can’t deny that today, and this period of Lent, call us into a deeper, and perhaps darker, reflection. Lent invites us to go deeper into an awareness of our own sin, into an awareness of the sins committed against us, into an awareness of the pervasiveness of sin all around. I think of a song Leonard Cohen released right before he died, “You want it darker? We kill the flame. ... Hineni, hineni, I’m ready, my lord.” There is no question that this is what our Scripture readings for today are calling us to do, to go deeper into the darkness.
Now you may be wondering why. Why would God call us into this deep period of darkness, where we might encounter even more feelings of regret and sorrow and fear? Isn’t life hard enough without this added burden?
Well, there are traditional answers to this question, that would say, No, life isn’t hard enough, we must engage in this behaviour and reflection as penance for our sins. We must fast from those things that give us comfort because they draw us farther from God. We are sinful humans who must feel the full weight of our sinfulness.
These are the traditional reasons for Lent, and they have served Christians well for generations. At the same time, these answers run the risk of encouraging us to pretend that Easter hasn’t happened yet, and they can lead us to forget that we are, in fact, forgiven all our sins. If we are already in a dark place, they can crush us, rather than leading us to new life. The reality is that Good Friday and Easter did happen, we are already forgiven all our sins, and in Lent we’re not pretending otherwise. We do not forget that we worship God for the risen Christ, not the crucified man. We worship the God of life, not death.
You see, these words, however they strike us, are not the last word. Ash Wednesday is not the end. The end comes at Easter. The last word is a word of life, and that last word we will hear again today, after ashes have been imposed on our foreheads, when the reminder that we are dust is followed by Holy Communion, the reminder that the life of Christ has been given to us. I have said before that baptism comes before Lent, and that our baptismal cross of water comes before the cross of ashes. And I lift up for you today that after the cross of ashes and words of death come the words of life. The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are given for you, for the forgiveness of sins, and for life. God throws us this life-line in times of darkness, this tangible proclamation that the light and life of Christ comes into us, in order to bring us out of darkness again. Communion reminds us that even in the midst of the valley of shadows we are tied to the light of God through Christ.
We know this, and as I said earlier, for these next forty days we do not pretend otherwise. And so I would suggest that perhaps God might be calling us today to enter into this discipline of Lent not for our own sake, but for the sake of others who are already deep in this darkness. That perhaps we, who know we are forgiven, who experience Easter and new life, who are tied to God’s divine light by Christ himself, are called to go into the darkness and be with those who have only ever experienced Lent. Perhaps we are called into this discipline of being reminded we are dust so that we can accompany those who are experiencing dust right now.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Whatever feelings these words stir in you, I pray that they also stir peace, as you remember that before these words was the water of life, and after these words comes the life of Christ. And may Lent this year be a time where you are so strengthened by the light of God that you can be with others in their darkness, as we walk these forty days towards Easter together. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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