Homily for
Ash Wednesday
Wednesday 1 March 2017
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church
Readings:
I love Ash Wednesday. There is something very beautiful about what we do when we begin Lent. At the same time though there are things about this day that drive me a little crazy. This is my seventh Ash Wednesday here in Wilkes-Barre. There is a certain routine to this day that has happened each year since 2011. During the day I tour the Valley in my role as chaplain, providing ashes mostly for other employees within the hospital system. In the evening I shift roles and as rector celebrate with you all the beginning of the Lenten fast with the Feast of the Eucharist.
Thanks
to these two activities and the role appropriate to each, I end up
making more ashen crosses on foreheads on Ash Wednesday than I care to
count. Perfect proof of this is found in the fact that even though I
was my hands a lot in the course of a regular day, it's usually a couple
of days at least before the last stain of ash is gone from my right
thumb.
But
why are we all so insistent on getting ourselves so marked? I ask that
question internally the most when in my role as chaplain I encounter
persons ling enough only for me to make the sign of the cross upon their
foreheads. I wonder why it's so important to them. If I am truthful I
often answer that question by thinking they do it only to be seen by
others, and without giving any thought to the sign which is visible for
all to see. When I get those thoughts, I find myself so terribly
tempted to impose the ashes not with the traditional sentence prescribed
by the liturgical propers of this day. In it's place I ponder making
that cross while quoting the opening line of today's Gospel:
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them."
But
the truth is that this ash cross has nothing to do with piety, whether
or not it is on display for all to see or kept with such humility that
God alone sees the presence of faith in us. The cross is always
pointing to Jesus and to his sacrifice. Thus the cross always points to
death. But this cross is very specific. It is made with ashes. These
are our ashes. The death to which they speak is our death. The ashen
cross then is not the invitation to come and see how very pious I am.
It is a reminder not so much for those around us but rather for
ourselves that we are mortal creatures for whom there has been a time to
be born and there shall be a time to die.
This
is a harsh message in the midst of a society that puts so much time and
energy into denying mortality and making us blind to death. Among us
even people who embrace no faith whatsoever have no difficulty embracing
the sense of immortality and life that continues on beyond physical
death. They cannot explain it, and yet they embrace it. The most confusing part in this for me is the fact that for some God never
enters the thought of such life after death, even as they think we have
gone mad for confessing faith in God.
Ash
Wednesday and these crosses formed with ashes remind us that God is and
must be in the equation. Today we are reminded that we are mortal
beings, that one alone is immortal, that one who alone is God. The
awareness of that mortality drives home for us the awareness that we are
in need of God. It also impresses upon us a certain time frame in which
we need God.
There
is a connection between the awareness of our mortality and the presence
of God. How many people do we see around us who in their youth believe
themselves to be invincible and completely blind to the presence or
desirability of God? Often we think, "They'll grow out of it in good
time." Some do! Others never get the opportunity. They put off for
tomorrow what needs to happen today. But then tomorrow never comes, for
today mortal life quite naturally comes as a thief in the night, and
death steals life away.
Today
we begin Lent. This is a time that we are called to focus on our
salvation. The focus on mortality serves to drive us to God. The
awareness of our brokenness is intended to stir us to grow to be more
and more like Christ, that we might say with St. Paul, "It is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me." And as we grow in Christ, and
become more like Christ, striving for the eternal, loving God and our
neighbor, living the faith, we can embrace our mortality all the more.
We are mortal beings to be sure. But the wonder of the Gospel is that
Jesus takes ashes and brings forth life. He calls us to himself as
mortal beings for whom there was a time to be born and who have a time
at which we shall die. And he transforms the later by clothing us in
the power of his resurrection, gracing us with his very life, empowering
us to such a degree that we might say as we do at funerals that for us,
the faithful clothed in Christ, in death, life is changed, not ended.
The
ashes of this day remind us that this is not natural but is only
grace. We are mortal beings for whom there is a time to live, and a
time to die and to return to the ashes from which we were created. But
in that season of life, God calls us to embrace mercy and grace, to be
clothed in immortality and marked with the cross of Christ by which we
are identified as God's People. Don't put off seeking Christ and
longing for his gifts. Don't neglect God thinking that tomorrow we
shall answer the call. We have no guarantee of tomorrow apart from
Christ. And even for us who belong to Christ, tomorrow may find us in
the Kingdom and no longer in this world. Let us therefore strive today
to follow Christ with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, until
at last we keep glad Easter in the heavenly courts where death is no
more and sin is forever defeated and forgotten.
Father
Timothy
Alleman
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