Ash Wednesday comes like a shock to the system, like a bolt from the blue. We are suddenly arrested by the drama of it all. “Dust you are and to dust you shall return”. In the midst of life with all its richness and fullness and possibility we are confronted with intimations of our mortality. We are created from the earth and to the earth we shall all return. We are mortal – period. I am not sure why we are so surprised by it all, but speaking for myself, I find the words used for the ashing both arresting and salutary. Those words make me say to myself, “o.k. I better look to the quality of my life, to my priorities, to the things left undone, to my relationships, or whatever, before it is too late.” There is an urgency consequential on those words. That is not a bad thing in itself. It is a bit like the threat of bushfire at home. Because they are such a part of the landscape a lot is talked about in fire prone areas of prevention and preparation. Ash Wednesday has that quality about it. Some personal house-keeping never goes astray.

But there is a deeper meaning in Ash Wednesday and in the sign of ashes which reminds me of the bushfire. In the Old Testament lesson the prophet Joel cries out, “Return to the Lord your God”; Paul says in the second reading, “Be reconciled to God” and the Gospel gives us three so-called evangelical counsels, almsgiving, prayer and fasting, so that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you”. In other words all we do today and in the Season of Lent is to do with God. It is above all a time of returning to basics, to the basics of our Faith. The ashes themselves remind us who we are and where we are from. We are God’s creation formed from the very earth and to God we shall return. If you go away with nothing else today, remember that. You, each of you, and I are God’s children now as John reminds us in his epistle for that is why we were created.

But like the ashes left over from the forest fire are the source of new life through enabling future growth so the ashes with which we are marked today also point us to the death and resurrection of Jesus, which for us is the source of our re-creation. We die to sin as Paul says in Romans in order that we may live in him that is Jesus. We are pointed forward to Saving Work of Jesus which will be commemorated in Holy Week.

Finally the Gospel presents us with a healthy warning and reminder what is the purpose for our Ash Wednesday and our Lenten commemorations and practices. They certainly are not about impressing others with our piety; they are not about totting up “brownie points” for our easy access to heaven. But they are all about allowing God to be revealed through our lives, allowing ourselves to be the sorts of people God created us, redeemed us and calls us to be. Almsgiving, giving to the poor and needy, to the work of ministry and mission of the church, to social outreach, is not in order to appear on the list of donors and thereby to impress our friends, but is ultimately about sharing in and displaying the utter generosity of God “who so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son for us”. Again our prayer both personal and public is of course helpful to us but more than that it enables the Spirit of God to work in us and through us. In our praying we open ourselves to God, allowing the Spirit of Love and Peace and Reconciliation to flow through us into the world. When we pray we say “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done”. God at work in us and through us. And in our Fasting, the evangelical counsel we find most difficult in contemporary Western society, again the purpose is not to show how strong we are in resisting chocolate, alcohol or whatever, or to loose some excess weight although that is always a fun outcome or to impress those with whom we live or work, but to be a testimony to our creatureliness, that we are made by God, the Creator of all things.

So as we commence this Lenten season don’t see it as a negative time, a time of giving up and doing without, a sad time or an annual burden. Rather see it as a positive time, a time of focusing on the fundamental, foundational things of our faith. And most of all pray that whatever we do this Lent it may ultimately bring us closer to God and give God the glory.   Amen

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