Ash Wednesday

Plan to join us for the Imposition of Ashes & Holy Communion at 7 a.m. in the Chapel and Noon and 5:30 p.m. in the Church
 
 

The Imposition of Ashes

There is nothing living, that will not one day be turned to dust, to a handful of dust that the wind blows away. That’s why the ancient custom for expressing sorrow – including sorrow for sin – was to pour dust and ashes on head and body. When rebuked by God, Job says, “I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). And after Adam rebelled against God in the garden, God warned him of his eventual return to the dust, “for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19). On Ash Wednesday, those are the words which the priest says to the faithful, as he imposes the sign of ashes on their foreheads: “Remember, O man, that dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” In accepting those ashes we acknowledge our solidarity with sinful Adam, and the death both spiritual and physical that is the wages justly paid for our disobedience to God, the source of all life. We acknowledge that we start out not where Adam started, in the life-giving harmony and peace of Eden, but where he left off, in the wilderness of toil, under the shadow of death, in need of redemption. Yet, precisely in acknowledging the justice of God’s judgment against us, we appeal for his mercy to save us from ourselves: “Turn thy face from my sins, and put out all my misdeeds/ Make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps 51:9, 10). This dust can only live again if God himself cleanses and renews us by his Word and Spirit. And so our humble repentance in dust and ashes is a plea for spiritual resurrection, through faith in the perfect obedience of Christ. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).