Hello,
I think I need to go back to seminary for further instruction, Imposition of Ashes 101.
Last Wednesday, we began Lent as we always do with Ash Wednesday. I don’t know how long Christians have be observing the practice of placing a cross of ashes on the forehead of those who come to worship on Ash Wednesday, but I am quite certain it has been for a long time. For a long time, people have begun their 40 day Lenten journey of reflection and restraint by coming to the front of the church during the Ash Wednesday worship service and have a cross of Ashes placed on their foreheads and hearing the truth of the human condition, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
Well, anyway, this past Ash Wednesday I arrived at church early in the evening so that I could prepare the ashes for imposition. That sounds like a rather formal thing that a pastor might have instruction on in seminary, but in truth it was one of those things that seemed to slip through my education. How do you prepare a pile of ashes so that they can be applied to someone’s forehead?
Over the years, I have come up with my way of preparation. I take a bit of baby oil, not too much though lest the ashes become goopy, mix it in with the ashes and produce a sort of sticky but dry substance. Also in the past, I have taken the safer route by buying a packet of ashes from a church store (yes….you can buy ashes). When you buy them they come very finely crushed and uniform in size. Many churches, however, make their own ashes. They make them out of the Palm Sunday palms that people have kept at their homes for a year. They bring their dried palms (a visual sign of how our faith can become rather fickle, shouting Hosanna one day, and another day our praises have sort of dried out) on the Sunday before Lent and burn them. Thereby when they are placed on our foreheads, it is a physical confession of our up and down faith, and speaking to us the truth that our only hope is in the grace of God who sent his son to die on a cross for us.
Unbeknownst to me, this congregation which I am serving as an Interim Pastor, is one of those congregations that creates ashes from palm leaves that they have burned. So, when I came to worship on Ash Wednesday, I found a container of ashes that were apparently burned last year. Although the ashes were not super fine in their texture, and although they were not completely uniform in size, they were pretty close. So, I dumped a tablespoon or so of the ashes in to a small bowl, added a couple of drops of baby oil, and began to stir. After a while, it seemed like I had accomplished my preparation goal….a dry, but sticky substance.
But when it came time in the service for me to apply the ashes on the people’s foreheads, I found out that my preparation was far short of perfect. Instead of transferring a small amount of “soot” to my thumb, I could either get nothing to go on my thumb, or I would get boulder-size (well…not quite that big) clumps on my thumb. You can see where this caused a problem. When I marked people’s foreheads, the ashes didn’t just stay on their foreheads, but because of the quantity of ashes that I had on my thumb, often times they came tumbling down people’s faces….landing in their eyelashes and dropping on their shoulders. So, when the people heard me say, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” the message came like a bold and all caps text….shouting the truth of the human condition. Not just a cross of ashes on their foreheads, but an avalanche of ashes on their bodies.
I am not sure that the folks needed an amplified version of the message of Ash Wednesday, but they got one. Some say that compared to generations ago, the reality and power of death is less. People live longer. Medicines fight off deadly disease. Safety measures are normal parts of life. So, maybe the cascade of ashes is not so out of line, after all.
Whether appropriate or not, I know this: given the amplified message of Ash Wednesday that my people received……I am going to do all that I can to counter it with overwhelming loudness on Easter! For when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, he did so with a sonic boom that even brought deafness to death. Because of Jesus, death’s words do not have the final word….it may be that the human condition is a dust-bound journey….but thanks to Jesus, his death and resurrection, death’s dust will be gathered together into new life….life filled with the living breath of God….life filled with timeless life of God….life filled with the unending wonder and presence of God.
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those may be Ash Wednesday’s Lenten words….but, get ready, they aren’t the last words that you are going to hear!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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