The observance of Ash Wednesday in many churches includes the placing of ashes on the foreheads of worshipers in the form of a cross. As this is done, the priest or minster says the following words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words come from Genesis 3:19 and reflect the biblical story of God’s judgment on Adam after sin entered the Garden of Eden.
This pronouncement sounds strange to our modern ears. We live in a pop culture which stresses positive thinking. The decades-old cliché “I’m okay; you’re okay” is still around in some form or another and reminds me of “whistling in the dark as one walks through a graveyard at night.” Furthermore, Christians recall the words of Jesus that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Joy is included in that mission. So, why all this talk about dust and ashes? Does this reflect some ancient practice and macabre perspective that we can dispense with in 2021?
I suggest that this practice can still serve a useful purpose, especially in our postmodern world. Within our society, we find ourselves, for the most part, separated from the experience of death. We do all we can to keep ourselves from the reality of the grim reaper. We conspire in the harmful fiction of pretending we are immortal. Death is thought of as unnatural and distant. Hospitals, “rest” homes, and mortuaries are part of our conspiracy to keep death out of sight and out of mind. But some day our names will appear in an obituary column. Not a one of us is exempt. The “bell tolls” at some point in time for all of us. I suggest part of the stress and angst we have experienced during the current pandemic is related to our inability to keep death out of sight and out of mind. We are approaching half a million deaths in less than one year (more deaths than American armed forces suffered during World War II), and we are still not done with Covid-19. (297,557 U. S. soldiers died from combat in the four years of World War II.)
The awareness of death, which was much more common in cultures in the distant past, can serve a positive purpose.
The awareness of death, which was much more common in cultures in the distant past, can serve a positive purpose. Death reminds us that we are here only for a limited time. If we are breathing, we are still alive. And the awareness of such life should make us more passionate about what we can do in this world for God and others as well as the legacy we will leave behind when we are gone. Any focus on our death brings a sober reflection on our individual lives. Sometimes such a focus can be quite jolting. We are shaken to our foundations as we consider our mortality and the end of our tenure on this earth. With our demise, our past is complete. Our days to live and learn, to rejoice and love have come to an end—at least, in this dimension of existence. If we were to evaluate those days, what would be our honest judgment? We came from dust, and now we will return to dust. What is important is the life that was lived between that coming and returning.
When the cross is placed upon our foreheads with those somber words, we are called to remember. Remembering is a vital part of our worship. Each time we observe communion, we hear those familiar words of our Lord: “Do this in remembrance of me.” The cross placed on our foreheads serves as a reminder both of our mortality and our possibilities in life.
Mnemonics are devices designed to help us remember. They most often come in the form of words and phrases
Most of us remember the mnemonic we were taught in elementary school about the number of days in a month: “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November; all the rest have thirty-one . . .”
In music there are several mnemonics: Spaces in the treble clef are remembered by the word FACE; Lines in the treble clef by the phrase “Every Good Boy Does Fine”; Spaces in the bass clef by “All Cows Eat Grass”; and Lines in the bass clef by “Good Boys Do Fine Always.”
In science we have ROY G BIV to recall the colors of the spectrum in descending order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet).
And in anatomy, all medical students are taught the order of the twelve cranial nerves by the cumbersome phrase, “On old Olympus’ towering tops, a Finn and German viewed some hops.” (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal abducens, facial, acoustic, glossopharyngeal, vagus, spinal, hypoglossal)
The word “mnemonic” comes from a Greek word meaning “mindful.” Mnemonics can also be objects and images. The cross is a mnemonic device we use during Lent to help us become mindful of many important truths.
THE CROSS REMINDS US OF WHO WE ARE: The first mark of the cross is the vertical mark in the shape of an uppercase “I”. This represents the someone who is “me”: The “I” with all my strengths and weaknesses; all my goodness and sin; all my hopes and dreams; all my memories and relationships. God created each of us in all of our uniqueness. We are called into a personal relationship with our Creator that is different from that of everyone else. And at the moment of death, that uniqueness is experienced in a very stark and lonely way. No one can die for us. And no one knows exactly what we are feeling in those last moments of life. During the pandemic, many people died alone in hospitals, and our grief over those isolated deaths was particularly poignant. But the truth is, we all die alone with the selves we have created through the lives we have lived.
But we are also solitary in our unique identities as irreplaceable children of God. No one who has ever lived has been exactly like you. No one living today is exactly like you. And no one who will ever live will be exactly like you. Your life is a unique gift from God. Perhaps the greatest sin is to squander that gift of grace. The specter of death keeps before us the truth that in this world, we have only one life to live—only a brief time to write and act our part in the long saga of the human race. And we are the only ones who can grace this world with our particular gift.
But all too often, it is this “I” which separates us from God, others, creation, and even our deepest and most authentic selves. As preachers in the past said, “I” stands in the middle of “sin.” This insight is what I call “Pogo wisdom.” You may remember the comic book character Pogo. He is best known for the words, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” We are both blessed and cursed by our uniqueness. Or perhaps better put, we are both blessed and cursed by the ways we embrace and use our uniqueness. We are precious, only one-of-a-kind children of God, and at the same time, we are in need of God’s grace, love, patience, forgiveness, and mercy. What strange creatures we all are!
THE CROSS REMINDS US OF WHOSE WE ARE: With the imposition of ashes on the forehead, the vertical stroke of the uppercase “I” is followed by a horizontal stroke. That horizontal stroke crosses out the “I” which separates us from God, others, creation, and even our deepest selves. This “I” is our worst enemy—an enemy which keeps us from joy, love, and community. It’s like a deadly cancer in our soul eating us alive. Deep down this “I” is not who we truly want to be or who we were created to be. It’s crucial to see that the “I” that is crossed out is not the authentic “me” in all my uniqueness as a child of God. The “I” which is crossed out is the shadow side of myself which can never lead to joy, growth, love, or peace. It’s the false ego which can never know true freedom, community, compassion, or serenity. It’s our “private enemy number one.”
But that horizontal stroke also reminds us of the loving arms of Christ stretched out to embrace us and to welcome us home. It communicates the fundamental truth of the gospel: “For God so loved the world.” The word “world” in Greek is our word “cosmos.” The cross has also been compared to a compass with the four directions of north, south, east, and west or the four corners of the earth. All of which means that the cross is never about just my “salvation.” The cross has universal meaning. God’s love cannot be restricted, limited, or co-opted by any group or individual. Yes, it is true that God does not love anyone more than God loves me. But it’s equally true that God does not love me anymore than God loves anyone else. Those same arms which embrace and welcome me are the same arms which embrace and welcome the whole world and everyone in it. Once the false self is crossed out, we can accept, internalize, and celebrate this costly and stubborn love with profound gratitude and genuine humility. We finally come to the wonderful wisdom of St. Francis: “I am who I am in the heart of God; nothing more and nothing less—and so is everyone else.” Until we know that truth in the deepest recesses of our souls, we will never understand the meaning of that cross which is placed on our foreheads.
THE CROSS REMINDS US OF WHERE WE ARE GOING AND WHO IS AHEAD OF US: In many churches, the ashes used on Ash Wednesday come from the burning of the palm branches that were waved during the previous year’s Palm Sunday service. In spite of the triumphant meaning churches often ascribe to Palm Sunday, the deeper lesson of that event is quite sobering. The crowds who welcomed Jesus with palm branches and shouts of acclamation had no true understanding of what kind of Messiah this Prince of Peace was. Their “Hosannas” of Palm Sunday quickly became the “Crucify him” of Good Friday.
The ashes placed on our foreheads are the ashes of all our false, self-serving, triumphant Hosannas—Hosannas which betray and deny the truth of Christ’s nonviolent, peace seeking, and compassionate mission and identity. Jesus’ own disciples never caught on to who Jesus was until after his death and resurrection. One betrayed him; another denied him three times with vulgarity; and the other ten abandoned him. But is our understanding of and commitment to Jesus any better than those surrounding him on Palm Sunday? What does it mean when our praise of Jesus turns to ashes? What does this say about the quality and nature of that praise? And what does it say about who we are?
But the cross also points to the future. That cross is now empty. Jesus goes ahead of us and still calls us to follow him. The last church I pastored had beautiful banners celebrating the seasons of the church calendar. The banner for Ordinary Time/Kingdom time focused on the teachings of Jesus. I asked the artist who designed the banners to portray Jesus with his back to us beckoning us to follow him. All you can see of Jesus in this banner is his back because Jesus is forever before us as the Pioneer and Perfector of our faith. I think the most important question we can ask of ourselves and of our churches is simply this: Are we following Jesus? If we are following Jesus, everything that really matters will occur in that following. If we are not following Jesus, then nothing we do will matter in our lives or in our churches.
Mark’s Gospel reaches its peak in the eighth chapter when Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” The cross we bear is the price we pay for being faithful to the way of Jesus Christ in a world that is opposed to that way. It is the price we pay for being faithful to the Kingdom of God in cultures ruled by contemporary Caesars, Herods, and Pilates. Saying “Yes” to Jesus often means saying “No” to Caesar. It’s much easier wearing crosses on our foreheads or as jewelry around our necks than it is to bear our crosses in a violent, unjust, and greedy world. Sometime I think, if we really want to be honest, we should have another station at Ash Wednesday services—a station with cotton balls and bowls of water so we can wash off the crosses on our foreheads before we even leave the sanctuary. Let’s go on and get it over with before we abandon our own crosses for real in the world outside those sacred walls.
Are we followers of Jesus? I don’t know about you, but too often I give the same answer Peter gave in the courtyard of the high priest when he realized that he was vulnerable as a disciple of this arrested rabbi. Peter said three times, “No, I am not.” But what happened to Peter gives us hope and points to the future. We are told that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, he specifically came to Peter and invited him to renew his discipleship and follow his Lord. Jesus comes to us a second time, a third time, a hundredth and thousandth time and still issues that call: “Take up your cross and follow me.” Maybe this Lenten season, in the words of that song we sing far too glibly, we can see him more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly.
