Our Confession: Psalm 51:7-10 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean That truth leads us to our need to confess. And the sin that we inherit (original sin) and the sin that we commit (personal sin) if not dealt with, leads us to the judgment of eternal death and separation from God.
The curse that sin brought shows up in many ways: our struggle to make a living, our conflicts with the natural world and each other, and our mortality-“it is appointed for mortals to die once” (Hebrews 9:27). Human beings, originally created to live forever, sinned, and sin brought about death-spiritual death and physical death. Our Curse: Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face Amen.” That prayer reminds us of our next reality, also reflected in Scripture. The Lord bless him/her and keep him/her, the Lord make his face to shine upon him/her and be gracious unto him/her and give him/her peace. One of the burial rites in the Book of Common Prayer reads as follows: “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother/sister _ and we commit his/her body to the ground earth to earth ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The ashes symbolize the dust from which God made us. Our Creation: Genesis 2:7 …then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being (NRSV). There are three Scripture passages that lay out the basis for this liturgical practice. Do I cover them with my cap? Do I wipe them off? Or do I allow the ashes to continue to do their work of humbling my proud spirit? I opted for the latter.ĭepending on the Christian tradition you are in or familiar with, you may fully get the ashes, both literally and figuratively, or you may wonder what all the hullabaloo is about, especially as we enter the Christian season of Lent and its starting point, Ash Wednesday.
However, in a few short minutes, I found myself in the subway system of New York and my commitment to Christ stood out to my fellow straphangers like an unsightly pimple on my nose. We were united in our humility and our commitment to be faithful to the gospel and to enter into the penitential season of Lent. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!”īy the end of the service there were nearly 300 of us with cross-shaped ashes on our foreheads. “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return. The words spoken over me at the imposition of the ashes stirred my emotions and challenged my comfort level: I was part of a non-denominational church in New York City, a church that, although it was a relatively new church plant, was committed to be grounded in the historic practices of Christianity. I’ll never forget the first time I received ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday.
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