ISIS, Cancer, War and Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. Millions will literally mark the day with ashes. What began in the early church as a 40 hour fast in preparation for baptism has transformed into 40 days of prayer, fasting and contemplation.

This year it comes at a particularly dark time:

• The ISIS beheading of 21 Christians.
• Friends in Ukraine struggling desperately under the Russian regime.
• A preaching colleague and father of three young girls struck with colon cancer.
• Team Carson hit with yet more bad news as they walk young Carson through her cancer journey.

On and on it could go. I can list the names of dozens in my congregation who are suffering everything from loneliness to addiction. The newscast and newspaper reports remain grim and dim.

And in the midst of it all comes Ash Wednesday.

If we’ve ever needed those ashes, we need them now.

Why? Particularly because of what they point to. They orient us toward the resurrection.

In some congregations/parishes, the ashes placed on the forehead are from the burned palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration–the moment King Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem. The ashes remind us that he’s still King and not even a cross could keep him down.

And, often, the administration of ashes is accompanied by a prayer similar to this one:

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Everything about Ash Wednesday leans forward into Easter Sunday. The gracious gift of everlasting life. The ultimate reminder that suffering does not last. Death does not win. Violence and hatred are short-lived. And everything that is wrong will eventually be made right.

If ever we’ve needed those ashes, it’s today.