An excerpt from my sermon on Sexagesima Sunday (arguing for a sacramental world view):
In closing, let me bring up another issue: the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. What is this about? In nature, ashes are the product of the dissolution or disintegration of a creature. Through the instrumentality of fire, what once was is no more. In the past, people must have associated the dissolution that ashes represent with the dissolution of their own hearts and bodies when great tragedies struck or when they were aware of how their sin was tearing their lives apart. Thus, they would put ashes on themselves as a symbol of what was going on in their lives and as a way of expressing outwardly their grief, similarly to the way people today wear black when a loved one has died. We find much of this in the Bible.
In Isaiah 61:3, the prophet tells us that the Messiah would give us beauty for our ashes. In other words, though we live in mourning for our sin, God will so deal with our sin that we will instead be able to be glad. On Ash Wednesday, ashes are applied to our foreheads, with the words, “Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.” The ashes represent the disintegration of our bodies into dust at death. Why do we so die? Because of the curse due to sin. It is a tangible reminder of the reality of our condition before God. Just as the flowers remind us of God’s providential care (a reference to Matt. 6), the ashes remind us of God’s judgment upon our race for our sin. When we have ashes on our heads, we are reminded of biblical truth, we see and feel with our eyes biblical truth, and we join all those who have gone before us, all the way back to biblical times, in sorrow and repentance for our sin, through this outward ceremony. It is a very meaningful act that helps us to prepare for the celebration of the work of Jesus for us at Easter, where He gave us beauty to replace our ashes.
The dualistic, Platonic, evangelical Protestant says, “Who needs that?” That’s the same radical reforming question as, “Who needs icons and art in the sanctuary? Who needs music? Who needs candles and flowers and crosses and incense? Who needs rituals? Who needs the traditional litugy? Who needs anything tangible and visible for our faith?” Well, those questions are asked because of a particular world-view, not because of what the Scriptures say about the place of Creation in God's plan for mankind. I would counter that we not only live and move and have our being in God’s spiritual omnipresence, we live and move and have our being in God’s created world. We too are creatures, and God teaches us in His Word that we are to glean from our creaturely connection with His creation those benefits that He has built into that creation, guided by the symbolism that His Word confirms as inherent in His creatures.
It is fitting that God’s creatures on God’s earth use His meaning-packed creation in our worship of our Creator God. Such use and celebration of God’s glory in creation and our own earthiness is part of the spiritual wholeness which Jesus came to restore to us. It is part of being a disciple of Christ, the One who taught us to see Him and ourselves in the good things He has made.
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