Sooty Ash Wednesday

Dear Friends in Christ -

It's one of the messiest days of the year, this day when we put black ash on our foreheads. For those of us who were at the early service this morning, the ashes flake down all day on our noses and are smeared by our fingers as we brush hair back from our foreheads during the day.

These ashes are sacramental: "outward and visible signs of inward and invisible grace." Wearing these ashes is like wearing a post-it note on our foreheads saying, "it's a mess in here!"

For us New Englanders who are never ones to wear our emotions on our sleeves or air our dirty laundry in public, the act of wearing such a public statement around on our foreheads all day feels like a stretch. First, it tells people we're a Christian, something we don't usually talk about in the grocery store or at work. Second, it confronts us with realities we don't like to think about, much less talk about: we're flawed, we make mistakes, we're mortal, and time's running out to deal with the mistakes we've made. Sigh. That's pretty heavy stuff for a sunny mid-winter Wednesday.

So what to do? Strains of a song I heard in church a few months ago waft through my internal sound system in reply: "Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus, and live . . . Fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus, and live."

The truth is, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross doesn't amount to a hill of beans, doesn't transform us a bit, if we don't let him take our sins with us and give us, in exchange, his Live and health and peace.

Ash Wednesday is a messy day. The whole process of opening up our hearts and exchanging what we've got (sin and pain and grief) for what Jesus has got (Life and health and peace) involves opening up the locked up, battoned down, dusty corners of our hearts and sorting through some smelly, unsightly things that we've sometimes tried to keep out of the light of day for some time. But Jesus' promise to us is that he'll take whatever we can dig up, and he'll take it away "as far as the East is from the West."

There's a reason that the sooty, messy ashes are pressed onto our foreheads in the sign of a cross. It's a reminder: Jesus takes whatever nasty, dark stuff we show up with on this day of repentance and covers them with his blood, shed on the cross. The cross is a sign of His victory over death, which - because of His love for us - he has made our victory, too.

On this holy day, may you know the power of this prayer and blessing:
Grant, most merciful Lord, to your faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve you with a quiet mind, through Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - be upon you and remain with you, now and forever. Amen.

Faithfully,
Janet+