Remnant of fire

ASH WEDNESDAY - 12 Noon - March 5, 2014 Ss. Peter & Paul


The parish I grew up in introduced ashes on this day, long before our present Prayer Book came into being. The Mass was at 6:30 in the morning, before school, and I was bleary-eyed and yearned to be back in bed. But I remember being fascinated by this day: the priest would sign us with the cross of ashes and say, "Remember, O man, that thou art dust and to dust shalt thou return."

Of course, mortality and sin were beyond my comprehension! The solemnity of this day was what really got to me, though I could never say why. But as I've grown older, I've learned more about ashes than I ever wanted to know ... and was too afraid to ask. The cremated remains of a young boy who was killed in a tractor accident on his farm became a few ounces of silent dust in a small box that I carried in my arms to his grave when I was a young Transitional Deacon, serving alone in my first parish. And some of the ashes got stuck in my prayer book and lingered there for years. The "cremains" of my Dad, as we scattered them on the old football field at his university, while the campus cops looked on! (The old stadium had become an intramural field and hq for the cops!) My Mom clutching the cremains of my brother Dan, who had taken his own life, before we placed it in the columbarium at their church. And, nine years later, placing Mom's cremains in the same niche. I have learned that ashes are the end of human life.

They are also an emblem of futility and despair, a visible sign of all we do to mess up our lives, spoil our dreams, and make us quiet murderers of ourselves and others. We were made to love, but our lust makes ashes of love. We were made to give; and instead we steal, though time will make ashes of all we've stolen. We were made as a living, thinking prayer to God, and instead, we build temples to ourselves on foundations of dust. We become used to our own sin, so much that we think almost nothing of it, believing that we really are good people.

Ashes are a witness that everything we desire that is not God's will, like our bodies, sooner or later will be burned and plowed under; and no plan of action or system of thought can change that. The ashes remain.

We might ask: what possible purpose is served by keeping a season in which all of this is rubbed in our faces? The answer lies in the ashes, for ashes are the visible memory of fire. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us again and again of a God whose glory is so magnificent, whose beauty and majesty are of such brilliance that to behold them is to die. God is a consuming fire, says Deuteronomy. God called the people of Israel forth in fire on the mountaintop and led them with fire through the wilderness. This is a God of infinite intensity and awe, sovereign, beautiful. To look on the Lord is to indulge in an overdose of glory. No wonder Israel trembles at the foot of Sinai: when what is glorious meets what is human, the result is ashes. Yet, ashes are at least the memorial of fire, and though we can't look on the face of God's glory, we can look into the ashes as into some dark mirror, and try to dream of what is so beautiful.

Israel took the risk of being consumed, of being turned to ashes, because they realized God had something to offer them that they needed: deliverance, a plan, a road map, a way out of the ash heap of their own sin - in short, the Law. It was to be made part of them, taken into their very being, for the God of absolute power was a God of utter love. This God would meet them half-way and go with them down the mountain. Though they could not look on the face of the almighty, they would see God's reflection in the Law. More than the ashes in the spot where God's fire had passed, now they would know the way of God's knowledge and love.


There is another fire: the Lord also gave the Holy Spirit into our hearts, a Spirit of fire to
burn away everything that would turn us to ashes. Lent is a season of learning to live in that fire, and living there is possible as long as we acknowledge two things at the beginning: First, that God is sovereign, and we are not; and second, the road through this fire will look like the road Jesus has walked.

The ashes of Lent are the sign of our mortal bodies and the reminder that God has turned death to ashes. The ashes are the memorial of our sin and the proof that Christ has beaten down Satan under his feet. The ashes are the evidence of our dying and the hope of our rising and living with and in Christ. In this holy season, confess your sins and stand in the fire of Christ's glory. Let his majesty rule you, his Spirit purge you, and the fire of his love make you his own forever.

[adapted from a homily given on this day, February 21, 1996, Trinity Church, Marshall, MI]