Why Ashes?

Christmas has been hijacked by Walmart and the Easter Bunny has hijacked the resurrection but no one seems too eager to hijack Ash Wednesday. There is something about being reminded that you are going to die. It is hard to market that one (but at the off chance that Walmart starts selling coffins remember you heard it here first!) but at its core Ash Wednesday is a reminder that we will at some point die.

For most of us this is not a fact that we celebrate but instead we run from, ignore and do everything we can to avoid death. This is why we need Ash Wednesday. The first thing that Ash Wednesday does is it connects us to the life of Jesus. Ash Wednesday begins the church season of Lent and during this season of Lent we journey with Jesus to the cross. It is not a pleasant journey and it is not supposed to be. The challenge here is if we do not understand what Jesus went through to get to Easter morning can we fully appreciate his sacrifice? Can we fully appreciate the gift of the resurrection? So we sing some songs that aren't as upbeat, we go to church a little more frequently (or at least a hand full of you do) and we either deprive ourselves of something we like or add something that we should be doing to help us understand the significance of this season. The more we understand the struggle the more we understand the victory.

Ash Wednesday also reminds us that there is something more. It is oh too easy for us to become connected to this world and we have every right to be. We have made life pretty good for ourselves down here. We can get pretty much anything we want whenever we want it and when we become too comfortable, we forget that there is something more waiting for us when we do die. As great as this world is it is not even a fraction of what Heaven is, but we have allowed ourselves to become distracted. Ash Wednesday reminds us that one day we will die but instead of hearing this as condemnation we should welcome this fact, because our death here leads to life eternal. A life greater than anything we could ever imagine, a life with God forever.

So why ashes? Because we need them. We need to be reminded of the difficult things that Jesus did for us even if they are a little bloody and messy. We need ashes because we need to be reminded that there is something more, there is something better and one day we will find it.

See you in church,

Chris