Peace Lutheran Church
Posts Tagged "Ash Wednesday"
Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2024
Let now these ashes make their mark, upon our foreheads and our hearts; from dust to dust we see decay that only God can take away.
O Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
As I look our today, I see a lot of crosses. Crosses made with Ash. Why? How does this remind us not only of our mortality, but also of what Jesus Christ has done for us?
Black of ash made their mark upon our foreheads. Why? As a reminder of what we are made from. All the way back in Genesis, when God creates Adam and Eve, He forms Adam from the dust of the earth. He forms Eve from Adam’s rib as a helpmate fit for him. When they sin against God. When they violate the one command that God gives. That command is to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, they are rightfully punished. Eve is cursed with pain in childbearing. Adam bears the greatest of the curses, because he did not speak up, rebuke the snake, and tell Eve to stop talking to him. Because of Adam, the entirety of creation is doomed for death and decay. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.
A death and decay that extends to us still today. The ashes are not only on our foreheads, but also to mark the darkness within our own hearts. Every single one of us have what we call original sin. The desire to break every single one of the commands of God. Sin that we have inherit ate by the fact that we are humans born of humans. We are sinners. We lie, cheat, steal, and covet. We put other things and people in the rightful place of God in our lives. We are deserving of present and eternal punishment. We are dust and to dust we shall return. Eventually, we will die. We will die because every single one of us has violated the Law of God in thought, word, and deed.
Black, dusty ash to remind us of our mortality. Yet where do these ashes come from? They are made from the palms of last year’s Palm Sunday. This is done to remind us that our King has come, not in the terrors of judgement, but to redeem us. A King who answers our cries of Hosanna, save us! In the most unlikely of ways. While we are deserving of eternal punishment, astray from God, violating His commands. The Creator of the universe enters His creation to save us. The seed of the woman through the womb of the blessed Virgin, Jesus lays aside His divine power, glory, and authority. He assumes the form of a servant. He assumes our sinful dust, yet was without sim, that our sinful black ashy self may be reconciled to God once again.
How is this reconciliation done? Look at how the ashes have been applied to you. They are applied in the shape of a cross. Why a cross? That is how Jesus reconciled us to God forever. By the wood of the cross, we are saved. Jesus saves us by living the Law perfect on our behalf. He bears our punishment when He dies a brutal death upon the cross. He covers our sinful, black dust, with His innocent blood. By dying He destroys death forever. By rising again from the dead, Jesus gives to us newness of life with Him forever.
Black ash to remind us of our dustiness, our sinfulness, and mortality, yet in the shape of the cross to remind us that we are redeemed dust because of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.