APRIL 2006

Ashes

Ashes have been a sign of repentance and a sign of mortality since the earliest days of recorded history. Ashes are first spoken of in the Bible in the 18th chapter of Genesis. In that chapter Abraham tries to negotiate with God concerning the city of Sodom. He knows his place. He knows that he is mortal and uses dust and ashes to express his mortality. In verse 27 and 28 he says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”

In the 4th chapter of the book of Esther, Mordecai and many other Jews mourn when they learn that the king has signed a decree allowing for the destruction of the Jews. Here are the first three verses of that chapter. “When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king's command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

Job sat among the ashes when he had been afflicted with sores. Daniel prayed for an answer from God. In addition to his prayer, he used “fasting and sackcloth and ashes.” When Jonah finally proclaimed his message to the city of Nineveh, the king, everyone in the city, and even the animals in the city repented and were covered with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

This is the background for our Ash Wednesday ritual. I put ashes on your foreheads. The ashes came from the burning of last year’s palm branches. I mixed in a bit of olive oil. I marked the sign of the cross and I said, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It is to be a sign of repentance and a reminder of our mortality. We are temporary residents of this earth, and we are people in need of forgiveness.

We do not need to go to New Orleans and participate in the revelry that takes place the day before Ash Wednesday in order to be in need of repentance. Most of us have enough sin in our lives already. Most people today think that the word repent means to express sorrow for sins. Using ashes would certainly be consistent with expressing sorrow, but the word repent also means to turn. Repentance is not complete unless we turn away from the sins that we express our sorrow for.

The ashes remind us that we are mortal. I am reminded of the words often used at committals during funeral services: “ashes to ashes, earth to earth, and dust to dust.” This life on earth is a short portion of our existence. We will exist far longer in another place. We can use the ashes of repentance to pave our way to our future destination.

During these forty days of Lent, we remember that Jesus turned toward Jerusalem. He turned on to the road that lead to the cross and to his suffering and death. He did not stray onto an

easier path. Christians are people who follow Jesus. Our task is to walk the path that God would choose to have us travel. We can use these forty days to evaluate our direction in life. Do any of the paths we travel lead us away from God? Lent is the time to turn off of those paths and redirect our steps onto the straight and narrow path.

I hope these forty days of Lent will help you to evaluate your life. I hope you have been reminded that you are mortal and do not live for this life only. I hope that your reflections during the season of Lent will increase the joy that you experience on Easter morning. May God bless each and every one of you.

Sincerely,

Pastor Birk