I did not grow up knowing Ash Wednesday. In fact I was probably in my late 30’s when I first attended an Ash Wednesday service. Since that initial experience I have since been to, even led, others. There is one being offered this evening at our church.
While I do not feel a need to be marked with a cross of ash residue on forehead or back of hand, I do respect the acknowledgement of mortality it represents. “From dust you came, to dust you will return”.
We are living in a time when there is a bombastic style of leadership attempting to drown out and overwhelm other messaging. Grandiose proclamations of “the greatest ever” this or that are commonplace. Shouting down and over criticism and questions has become the norm in the public sector. Hyperbolic statements of achievement and exagerated claims of significance reflect an egocentric approach that is, frankly, exhausting. Not only is humility absent, but praise is expected from those who serve alongside one whose unsatiatiable need for recogntion is unmatched. The adulation and acclaim sought seems unquenchable.
It is against this backdrop that Ash Wednesday arrives, an alternate message from an alternate perspective, sitting opposite the noise and bluster of today’s headlines. Ash Wednesday offers a needed reminder of humankind’s created status at the hands and mind of a benevolent Creator. It is about perspective, order, deferance, position – a need to acknowledge and assume a posture of humility. We, flawed and broken beings need the work of a Savior to rescue and redeem us. We are but dust, and to dust we shall return.
In Genesis 2 the account of creation shared states, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. (Gen. 2:7) I have always favored this telling of creation because of both the “hands on” nature of God it depicts, as well as the reminder it offers of where we come from. Without God’s creativity and breath, we are but dust.
Most people do not like to think about their mortality, which may be why Ash Wednesday services are so lightly attended. It’s not a popular message. Yet, it’s an important one. Ever since the Fall of humanity, the human being has operated as if we are the center of things, and not God. But Ash Wednesday reminds us that in the end, we are but dust, just as we began. This is not a message of fatalism, but realism. It’s a message of order, humility, deferance, and perspective.
Let us not be fooled, the loudest, brashest and most bombastic messages will not carry the day. Let the dust settle on that.
danielcash 