Ash Wednesday Sermon: Dusty Secrets

A few years ago I went to an Ash Wednesday service, just like I had done every year since I can remember. It was not much different than any other typical Ash Wednesday service. So when the time came, I got up to go receive my ashes and to hear the words I had heard every year of my life so far on this day- “Remember that you are dust, and to dust your shall return.”

But that year, as I stood up and waited in the line to kneel before the pastor, something different happened. My knees began to shake. Then I felt like my whole body was shaking. For some reason, that year it hit me: I am going to die.

It’s not like I didn’t know that before, but I don’t think I had really realized that it was true, that it was going to happen to me. It’s not like it was a secret, but it wasn’t anything I had ever really understood. It was shocking and completely terrifying.

When it was my turn to receive the ashes, I knelt down in front of the pastor, a tall and imposing kind of man. He put his hands on my head and they were so big, they almost completely covered it. His hands were a huge weight pushing down on me as I knelt. I felt like I was trapped under the weight, in a cage of his fingers.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” He smeared the sign of the cross on my forehead with his big, ashy thumb.

I trudged back to my seat with my heart still pounding.

This is how we begin the season of Lent every year- with ashes smeared in the shape of a cross on our foreheads. We remember that we are dust. We look back- all the way back to the beginning- when all there was, was dusty dirt. And God breathed life into that dirt and made Adam, and then Eve from Adam, as the creation story in Genesis 2 tells us. God caused rain to soak the dirt, and God created a beautiful garden for Adam and Eve to live in. Out of the dusty dirt, life was created, watered and sustained.

Well we all know what happened next! Adam and Eve didn’t wait too long before they messed up, and got booted out of this beautiful garden with these words- a reminder from God we still say today- “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Returning to God is an important theme of Lent. It’s a time to refocus ourselves on God by looking ahead to what is coming. We return to God and look towards Good Friday, facing the cross with him. We return to God to remember that we are dust, and that is how we are going to end up. We return to God to confess our sins, to open up to him about whatever secrets and shame we have been holding that are keeping us from God.

Telling God those secrets is important. But the funny thing is, God already knows our secrets. There is nothing we can hide from God. In the reading from Matthew Chapter 6, we heard Jesus’ instruction not to make a big deal of ourselves in front of others in our giving, our praying or our fasting- because when we do these things in public, others see us and that is our reward. Jesus tells us to do these things in secret- because then only God will see us and he will reward us. The things we do in secret are not hidden from God.

Jesus said, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…When you pray- go into your room and shut the door…” It is in the secret places where we meet God.

So a natural question is, Then why do we come to church? Why get the ashes on our foreheads for everyone to see? Why don’t we just stay home, locked away in our rooms, confessing our secrets to God and lifting up our prayers where no one else can hear? Isn’t it better for us to keep our secrets between us and God, and not let anyone else know that we have messed up, sometimes so deeply that we can never make it right again?

I know I come because though my room is secret, when I just stay there the weight of my sin and my secrets just keeps closing in on me. I don’t stay in my room because it gets really dusty in there, especially when I use it as a place to bury my secrets as far down in the dirt as I can. I don’t stay in my room because I need to know that though other people may seem perfect to me, they mess up, too, and we stand here and confess this together. I don’t stay in my room because I know there is another room where I can come to be with God and to have the weight of my secrets and my fears lifted.

Tonight this is our room. We gather here together to confess our sins, but to also hear the good news and be reminded of God’s forgiveness. We gather here to remember that though we are all going to die, and though this might cause us great fear, that is not the end of the story. We gather here to face the cross together, looking to our Savior Jesus Christ.

The cross tonight stands in a different place- next to the baptismal font. Both are symbols of death- death to our sinful selves in baptism, death of Jesus on the cross. Both are symbols of life- new life as God’s children in baptism, new life through Jesus’ resurrection on the cross.

Tonight we all wear the sign of the cross on our foreheads- Just as when we were baptized the pastor traced the cross on our foreheads with oil. That mark is harder to see, and both the ashes and the oil are easily washed away. But what never changes is that the one who made us out of dust holds us in his hands from the time we take our first breath to the time we take our last. No matter what our secrets or our fears- and in these uncertain days I know our fears are many- no matter what, our God gives us new life whenever we give our hearts. Where our hearts are torn and broken, God heals them through limitless love.

“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

It doesn’t matter to God how we look on the outside. What matters to God is what is happening on the inside. God can see our hearts, and that’s what he is concerned about. God doesn’t want us to put on a show for everyone. God doesn’t want us to be looking for rewards in places and people that won’t really give them to us. Instead, God calls us to confess our secrets and to live our lives showing his love quietly. When we practice our piety in secret, the world has no one to thank but God.

And so, having confessed our sins and remembered that God holds us from dust of creation to the dust of death, we prepare ourselves for the meal of thanksgiving- the Eucharist. As you hold the bread, thank God for this piece of forgiveness. As you drink the cup, thank God for the new life it brings.

Because of this gift, we don’t have to fear death. Someday we will be dust, but we are not dust yet. So go from this room tonight quietly. Wipe the messy ashes off your forehead, but not off your heart. Wait for and receive God’s abundant grace and steadfast love. Thank God that out of dust, dirt, and death comes new life. Amen.