[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon Ash Wednesday 21 February 2007 "Dust and Ashes" LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

A child noticed that her teacher seemed to have a bruise on her head. It was Ash Wednesday but the child did not know what Ash Wednesday was. She asked, "Did you hurt yourself?" "No," said her teacher, "It's Ash Wednesday and these are ashes." The child was puzzled but asked no more. Tonight we have ashes on our foreheads. Until recently, Lutherans never considered putting ashes on their foreheads even though Lutherans have long observed Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday without the ashes doesn't seem to make much sense. I noted with some amusement the way the rite has been listed in Lutheran Service Book-Altar Book. It has: "Ash Wednesday with Optional Imposition of Ashes" [LSB Altar Book, p. 483]. One wonders what the day should be called if there are no ashes. Should it be "The Wednesday That Begins Lent?" And yet the rubrics [the directions] state: "Ashes are a sign of mortality and death" [ibid. 483].

And so we modern day Lutherans have finally caught up with the centuries-old practice of the day, but we don't meet until evening and we can quickly go home to wash them off. We don't have to walk around all day with that "bruise" on our foreheads. We can leave the Divine Service, get into our cars, and drive home without any one else seeing the ashes on our foreheads, lest someone think that we are Roman Catholics.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. We already know that Lent is a somber season. The colors of the paraments and vestments go to a dark purple, a color associated with repentance, although it seems that black would be a much more solemn color. Black is an option given by our rubrics, but spending money on black paraments seems foolish since they are used only once per year.

Ash Wednesday seems to be about death, and that is right. Of course, Lent points to the death of Jesus on Good Friday. The six weeks of Lent lead solemnly to that fitting point. Specifically, Ash Wednesday is about our death. We began this evening with the Imposition of Ashes.

I was a bit dismayed to find out that the "Ring around the Rosie" nursery rhyme which has the phrase "ashes, ashes, all fall down" has nothing whatsoever to do with the Middle Ages and the plague as I had previously understood. A web site that researches what are called "urban legends" has laid the myth to rest. It evidently is nothing more than a harmless children's rhyme which has the more likely explanation that it was a way around a ban on dancing among many Protestants in the 19th century, those of Calvin's descent, but not among those of Luther's descent! The rhyme evidently has no real hidden meaning. At our son's wedding, our youngest grandchild kept singing part of that rhyme. She kept singing, "ashes, ashes" and the rest was unintelligible. I'm glad to know she's not really singing about the plague and death!

But we are still left with the matter of ashes. In our Adult Bible study on Sunday mornings we have been studying the origins of cremation and have found that cremation's origins are distinctly anti-Christian and anti-Biblical. These are not the ashes of Ash Wednesday. The ashes of Ash Wednesday are the result of burning the palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration. The phrase has even made its way into the Church's funeral rite where we hear, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" at the committal. The ashes have nothing to do with death after all, but dust does. After Adam and Eve sinned God pronounced this curse:

"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."" (Genesis 3:19, ESV)

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return" [LSB Altar Book.486].

Dust Is more accurate and to the point because Genesis 2.7 states:

"then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Genesis 2:7, ESV)

But ashes are Biblical. They are the sign of sorrow and repentance. In the Old Testament sincere repentance is shown by sitting in ashes and wearing sackcloth. So ashes, while not symbols of our mortality, are symbols of our repentance. Dust is the symbol of our mortality and wearing ashes on our foreheads is a sign of our repentance.

"Dust and Ashes" are connected. One gives way to the other. Remembering that you are dust and that you shall return to dust reminds you of your sins. Ashes are a sign of our mourning for your sin. It is true that you have lots of sins. Those who see Christianity as just another morality program tend to think of sins as individual items that are on some checklist and one has to add up the score at the end of the day or week. There are specific sins that you have. You can even list them if you are so minded. Some of them are quite troubling. Others you cannot remember even though you commit them frequently. But it is not so much the sins [plural] as it is the sin, your state of being in sin, in its clutches. Particular sins are symptoms of something much worse, the disease of sin. That is what is to be lamented during this Lenten season. That is what is to be confessed. And it is sin that causes you to seek God's Absolution in Christ. Sin is what is to be repaired once you has received the Absolution. Lent is a time to put aside all your pretenses, all your defenses about yourself and your sin. It is a time to confess to God exactly what he knows you to be. It is a time to confess also to ourselves and to one another our sin against God and against each other.

But it is also a blessed time because you hear again how your Lord Jesus Christ has taken your place under the Law of God which condemns your sin as well as your sins. You hear again how he resolutely went to Jerusalem to be the one, final offering for sin, offering himself upon the altar of the cross for you. You hear again God's gracious invitation to come to him in repentance so that you will receive his Absolution. It is a time to come to the altar to receive the true body and blood of Christ for your forgiveness. It is a time to hear how Jesus has crushed Satan's head for you by his perfect obedience. It is a time to hear all that Jesus has earned for you by his innocent life. It is a time to hear again that Jesus cannot forget you, that he has your name engraved into his hands. It is a time to return to the cleansing waters of your Baptism and to rejoice in the cleansing that Jesus has given you. You take up your cross and follow Jesus all the way to eternal life. Lent is a time to take that blessed journey with Christ to the cross.

Ash Wednesday is a blessed day because it focuses on very basic things: repentance and what Christ has done for you. Lent contains the rhythm of the Christian life, namely, Confession and Absolution. The Collect of the Day sums up what the season is really about:

Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness . .

"Dust and Ashes." These reminders of your sin and mortality are salutary, healthful, good. They point you again to Jesus, as the Gradual says so well:

O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
The founder and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God [Heb. 12.2].