A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Pastor Laura Gentry
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Ash Wednesday is the warning trumpet that sounds the alarm: you are going to die! Tonight, you will be invited to come forward to be marked with ashes and the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” No wonder our worship attendance isn’t as great tonight as it undoubtedly will be on Easter morning. Ash Wednesday is difficult. Painful. It calls to mind the harsh truth that we are mere mortals and nothing we can accomplish in our lives will change that. We are dust and we await the inevitable: that we will become dust again.
Yes, it is tempting to just skip this service and the whole 40 days of repentance thing. But you are here tonight, perhaps because you understand there’s something unique in this service—in the ritual of the ashes—and in the journey of Lent.
The American Poet Wallace Stevens wrote: “Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires.”
What are your dreams? Your desires? How does your impending death compel you to accomplish them? Yes, death is the mother of beauty. Isn’t that what we are saying tonight by our willingness to be here and have ashes smeared onto our foreheads?
Life is fragile and fleeting. When we stare death in the face, we come to a new appreciation for the role of faith in our lives. Our vulnerability drives us into the arms of God and there we find the fulfillment of our dreams and desires.
The season of Lent is about repentance, of turning away from our sin. Many think of it as a dreadful time when we must deny ourselves particular worldly pleasures. Certainly fasting, prayer and almsgiving are the traditional Lenten disciplines and are helpful in this season of repentance. Yet to repent is not just to turn away from sin—it is about turning toward God. That is the beauty of this season.
You see, the irony is that we begin this season talking about death and this helps us turn toward God who makes us amazingly alive. It is about participating in our own resurrection and not just our eternal resurrection that happens after we die, but about our resurrected life in the here and now. This Lenten journey is a journey from death to life.
As you know, our former church musician and friend, Ben Larson, died in Haiti at age 25, just months before his graduation from seminary. Again, we are reminded that life is short. Yet, Ben knew the joy of living the resurrected life each and every step of his way on earth. And in those final moments of his life, even when his life was at an end, his wife could hear him under the rubble singing. Yes, Ben spent his last breaths singing. The final phrase she heard from him was: "God's peace to us we pray.” Ben could sing of God’s peace even in this dark moment because he knew Jesus. Jesus had become his song that he sang by his joyful, faithful living.
One of Ben’s favorite hymns was “Lord Jesus, You Shall Be My Song” and he had requested that it be sung at his funeral “some day,” not knowing his death was so imminent. And so when his body was recovered and brought to Decorah for his funeral and internment, this hymn was sung.
I would like to sing it for you now because I think it illustrates the goal of Lent: that we turn away from sin and death and into the arms of Jesus who will not just love us every step of our journey, but will be our song.
Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey;
I'll tell ev'rybody about you wherever I go:
you alone are our life and our peace and our love.
Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey.
Lord Jesus, I’ll praise you as long as I journey;
May all of my joy be a faithful reflection of you,
May the earth and the sea and the sky join my song.
Lord Jesus, I’ll praise you as long as I journey.
As long as I live, Jesus, make me your servant;
to carry your cross and to share
all your burdens and tears,
For you saved me by giving your body and blood.
As long as I live, Jesus, make me your servant.
I fear in the dark and the doubt of my journey;
but courage will come with the sound
of your steps by my side.
And with all of the family you saved by your love,
we'll sing to your dawn at the end of our journey.
Let us enter fully into the repentance of Lent, with Jesus as our song that we may be amazingly alive. God’s peace to us we pray. Amen.
