Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2016 | 7:30 p.m.

Ash Wednesday Meditation

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Joel 2:1–2, 12–17
Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
Psalm 51

Isn’t it strange how we move our lives for another day?
Like skipping a beat.
What if a great wave should wash us all away?
Just thinking out loud . . .
Don’t mean to dwell on this dying thing.
(Dave Matthews Band, “Pig,” from the album Before These Crowded Streets)

These are some of the words from a Dave Matthews song of several years ago. The words speak to me of the fragility of life. “What if a great wave should wash us all away?” There’s such a split second between life and death, and death could come at any time. And the words speak of our tendency to take this life for granted.” Isn’t it strange how we move our lives for another day? Like skipping a beat.” We know that life is fragile, and we also take it for granted.

This night, this Ash Wednesday that signals the beginning of our Lenten observance, is a stopping place for us. It’s a time to sit up straight and to take note—to take note of ourselves. To take note of ourselves, but not just as individuals, disconnected from one another. It’s also a time to take note of our humanity and our collective similarities as humans. Tonight is meant to help us realize that not everything is right with us and not everything is right with the world. We all know that. We all know that we have these places inside of us that are places of struggle and avoidance and regret and sin. And goodness knows, we know that the world is not at all right either. But it’s hard to spend much time thinking about all of that.

The beginning of the Joel reading speaks of an alarm. “Blow the trumpet. Sound an alarm. The day of the Lord is near.” There’s an urgency to that message. Pay attention. Listen up. Something’s not right and God knows it.

So tonight, as we begin our Lenten observance, what does that alarm signal for you?

Is it that life is short? We all wrestle with death in some way or another, no matter our age. We want to keep it at bay, because don’t we all share the desire to hold onto life, to be well, to hope our relatives stay well? We fear the day when a loved one dies. We dread the thought of a call in the middle of the night.

We share that fear as human beings, and it’s common and real and poignant.

What we also share as human beings is our difficulty in letting go of control. That’s another kind of death—letting go. That’s why we fight it so. Letting go of control is an act of dying to ourselves. We share that struggle. We don’t like to lay down our pride, to acknowledge our failings, to entertain the thought that we might not have all the answers. We find it hard to let go of our kids and even harder to let go of how they turn out. We fight turning over the controls of our life to the God who created us. It’s hard to trust our future to God. Letting go of control is another kind of death. We fight it day in and day out.

Of course we do. How do we balance the need to stand up for ourselves and to be our own agents in the world, to make our way, to show leadership and intelligence and competence with the concept of dying to ourselves? Dying to ourselves and acknowledging our need for God, for one another.

Lyrics that come later in the Dave Matthews song, which by the way is titled “Pig,” go like this:

From the dark side we can see a glow of something bright.
There’s much more than we see here.
Don’t burn the day away.

“There is much more than we can see here.” There’s life and promise and love and a God who knows us. And pursues us and so badly wants us to turn our lives again toward God. “Don’t burn the day away.”

Michelle Bartel wrote a devotion on the Matthew passage today for our denomination’s Mission Yearbook. She said, “Jesus wants us to pray to God and God alone because he wants the energy, passion, love, and focus of our souls to be on God.” Jesus calls us out in that passage in Matthew about our intentions. Are our intentions to be seen as faithful and to be heard as knowledgeable about God? Bartel says that making sure people hear us is one way of being sure of ourselves. But “Jesus switches things up. We can’t be sure of ourselves. . . . Nor can we be sure of God, not by our own powers. But God is sure of us. How hard it is to let go and rest in that assurance. How hard it is to let go and focus on the God of the universe, who, we read in scripture, is love!” (The Presbyterian Mission Yearbook, Michelle J. Bartel, 10 February 2016)

If you choose to receive ashes tonight, let them remind you of the fragility of life, but when you receive them, don’t forget that you’ve already been welcomed at the communion table. Let them remind you not to burn the day away. Let them remind you to trust as you endeavor to die to your pride or self-importance or need to be heard or seen.

The crosses we make on your foreheads or hands will be imperfect, reminding all of us of our own grand imperfections. But the crosses will be made out of the very substance of death—the substance of death in the shape of a cross. The shape of a cross to remind us that we are sons and daughters of God, forgiven and freed from the weight of our sin, loved by the God we know in Jesus Christ—the same God who keeps calling out, “Turn again. Turn again to me.”