Witnesses on the Journey to the Cross: Ashes (Midweek Lenten Service)

 In the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.

Tonight we begin our Lenten journey. Lent is forty days, excepting Sundays, before Easter. The forty days comes from Jesus’ forty day journey in the wilderness being tempted by Satan – you’ll hear this as Sunday’s Gospel reading in Luke 4. Sundays are exempt from the forty days of Lent because Sundays are always “little Easters,” and not even the solemn nature of Lent strips that away. Thus, we properly distinguish this by speaking of the Sundays in Lent, because they are in the season, but never the Sundays of Lent as we would the Sundays of Epiphany, of Christmas, or of Easter. That might sound trivial, but Sundays and resurrection go together. Lent, not quite so much; at least, not yet.

Lent is a season of repentance. Each year on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the liturgy of the Church calls us to begin “a holy season of prayerful and penitential reflection,” when “our attention is especially directed to the holy sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It’s a solemn time of the year where we acknowledge and confess our sins, recalling the Biblical fact that it was our sins that Jesus carried in Himself to the cross, that the nails that pierced His hands, although driven in by the Roman soldiers, could just as well have been pounded home by us. Yet, Lent is also a season of joy – albeit, subdued. There is joy because Jesus is our Savior. Jesus’ blood was shed as payment for our sins, the truly innocent Lamb of God sacrificed by sinners for sinners, all under God’s own plan of salvation. Jesus was stripped of all glory and honor and dignity. He was judged by both man and by God and declared guilty. The wages of sin is death, and He paid the price to His own end. It is finished.

This Lententide, we will remember this solemn narrative by hearing from various witnesses. The purpose of a witness is to tell what was seen or heard. Witnesses deliver the truth. Witnesses help us understand what happened. This is what our Lenten witnesses will do – help us understand the passion of Jesus. Some of the witnesses will be inanimate things that are part of the story. Other witnesses will be the people who were there. All will bear witness to Jesus’ vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice.

You have already met tonight’s witness: ashes. As it is Ash Wednesday, it is most appropriate that we hear what the ashes say to us as we begin this forty-day Lenten journey to the cross.

There are three reasons why we receive ashes on Ash Wednesday. First, the ashes remind people of their sinfulness. Second, the ashes remind people of their mortality. Third, the ashes remind people that they have been redeemed. Let’s unpack this a bit.

Since ancient times, God’s people have used ashes as a sign of humble repentance. Jonah, Job, Daniel, and King David – among others – put on sack cloth (like burlap) and then covered themselves with ashes. It was uncomfortable pairing, the burlap and ashes combining to irritate the skin. This served as an outward sign of recognizing their sins, an act demonstrating repentance. This tradition was carried on by the early church. Although we’ve minimized this, getting rid of the sack cloth and not covering ourselves in ash, this is the tradition from whence Ash Wednesday comes. 

When one receives ashes on the forehead, they are admitting that they are sinners in desperate need of salvation. They are admitting that they have sinned not only against their neighbors, but against God Himself. The ashes demonstrate that without God, all people are spiritually dead. The ashes remind the wearer of their need to repentance, that is, both acknowledgement of sin and faith that trusts in God’s grace for the sake of Christ. Ashes were also used as a cleaning agent to remove stains. The ashes demonstrate our pleading that the Lord would purify us. The ashes serve as a tangible and visible sign of our failure to love God as much as He loves us.

The receiving of ashes on Ash Wednesday also remind people of their mortality, which is the direct result of God’s condemnation of our sin. God said to Adam, “You are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). As the ashes were applied, you heard the same, solemn reminder that the price of sin is death. Man cannot escape death. People don’t like to think about death. Our culture has seemingly sterilized death. We make every attempt to avoid death. Death is uncomfortable. And, that’s why ashes are so important. They are the physical reminder that God created man from the dust of the earth and one day all men will return to the dust of the earth. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The ashes force us to remember that we are merely mortal and that God alone is sovereign and reigns for all eternity.

Media vita in morte sumus.  “In the midst of life we are in death.”  So supposedly whispered a medieval monk after watching in horror as a laborer fell suddenly to his death while working on a bridge across a chasm in the Alps.  “In the midst of life we are in death.” This is part of the burial liturgy, to be spoken by the pastor as the casket is carried from hearse to the gravesite.

Yes, ashes bear witness of the need for repentance and a reminder of our mortality. While we are in Lent, we are nevertheless still Easter people, and as Easter people, ashes bear witness of Jesus Christ. Ashes aren’t just smeared across your foreheads. The ashes are given in the shape of the cross. The ashes trace the sign of the cross placed on your forehead and heart in your baptism which marks you as redeemed by Christ the crucified. In receiving the ashes, we remember that our Lord Jesus took on the fullness of our humanity. He who was sinless became our sin. Jesus the Christ was crucified on a cross. He was crucified for you. Then Jesus conquered death itself through His resurrection. He was resurrected for you. You were baptized into His death and His resurrection. He has taken the ashes of our past and created in us new life, allowing us to live forever in the holy presence of God! He has redeemed His children, making us clean and new. Through the cross of Christ, the power of death has been destroyed. Through the cross there is life. The cross-shaped ashes on our foreheads proclaim the good news that sin and death have been conquered through the cross of Christ.

In a few moments, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We, who were once dead in our sins, we who deserve to die, come to the Lord’s Table literally wearing the cross of Christ. Here, at the Lord’s table, those who have humbled themselves before the Lord, who have admitted their sin, who know they deserve death, are instead given the new life that is only found through the body and blood of our loving Lord Jesus. Here, at the Lord’s table, those marked with the cross of Christ are raised up, strengthened through God’s mercy, love, and grace, and sent forth into the world to proclaim the good news!

Tonight, the witness of the ashes leads us to humbly come before the Lord, repent of our sinful ways and receive the free gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. Interestingly, the ashes Lutherans receive are traditionally made out of the palm branches used previously on Palm Sunday, a day when people rejoiced and praised Jesus only days before they turned on him and yelled “Crucify Him!” This serves as a powerful witness that people are sinful, death is real, but Resurrection Day (Easter) is coming!

Come, all are welcome. All are in need of salvation. Let the Lord use the witness of the ashes of your past to create in you a clean heart and new life in Him.