Ash Wednesday

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. I have just recorded a talk to be broadcast on Shrove Tuesday. Here it is!

Ash Wednesday

We are about to enter the season of Lent. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and in many churches a traditional service will be held that includes the imposition of ashes. This is where the minister makes a mark of the Cross in ash on the foreheads of those assembled. As this takes place, the minister says:

‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

There then follows a period of about 40 days when people are meant to be penitent, that is, to be sorry for their sins and to show that they are so by giving things up and practising self-denial.

This really goes against the grain of the sort of society we live in. Our economy would actually collapse if people did seriously engage in self-denial as opposed to a token self-denial such as giving up sweets or whatever. The consumer society is just that: a society in which we consume and the more the better. Of course, there is a downside to this as we are discovering with global warming. Yet even though we know we need to do something about global warming, one solution we won’t countenance is consuming less. The message of self-denial is not one we are ready for and not one any economy is likely to adopt any time soon.

If the idea of self-denial is one that we don’t want to hear, the words: ‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ are words we want to hear even less. The consumer society thrives on advertising designed to show us how happy we can be if we buy a particular product. The last thing we want to hear is that we are dust and that we are soon going to die. In fact, we are engaged in this orgy of consumption precisely because we don’t want to think about death. We want to focus on the here and now. If we did think more about death, we might have to reorder our priorities and change the way we live.

No, death is not something that we want to be reminded of. This is why millions spend millions on creams and treatments that are supposed to ward-off ageing. We do not want to see the face of a dying person in the mirror every morning. The creams and treatments don’t work, of course, but we are so desperate that we will try anything. However, the face that stares back at us in the mirror, whether we want to hear about it or not, IS the face of a dying person: Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The reaction to this Ash Wednesday reminder is often to see it as typical of religious kill-joys: people who don’t know how to enjoy themselves and don’t want anyone else to either. It is seen as very negative and morbid. It is not meant to be. It is meant to remind us of who we are and of our mortality so that we can prepare for our death and make the most of our life. A popular saying is: ‘Life is not a dress-rehearsal’ meaning that this is all there is so we had better make the most of it.

The Christian message is that indeed life is not a dress-rehearsal, but it does not follow that this is all there is to it. There is another life beyond this one and what we do in this one directly affects our life in the next. No dress-rehearsal indeed!

It is because life is not a dress rehearsal, but the real thing, that we need to hear the Ash Wednesday sentences:

‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

We will die and the best way to prepare for our certain death is not by trying to blot the thought out with work or pleasure, it is by turning from sin and being faithful to Christ who Christians believe not only died, but rose again from the dead.

His death gives us hope as we face our own.