First Lutheran Church in Detroit Lakes, MN
Ash Wednesday | 02-14-2024
I’m going to start with a video from a good friend, Pr. Anders Peterson:
With three deaths in the congregation in the last couple weeks, today’s subject could not be more real.
“The fundamental fact about all of us is that we’re alive for a while, but we’ll die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger, and pain, and despair, and you can either run from this fact, OR by way of love…you can embrace it.”
That’s the line of Ash Wednesday for me. This worship service is an acknowledgment of our mortality. —we’re here for a little while, and we’ll be gone before long.
And WHAT IF coming to terms with that fact…can actually set us free? –free to enter the life we have now with greater depth, gratitude, intention, and joy? In an article from The Christian Century (thanks, Roy), a hospital chaplain named Rachel Rim, asserts just that; she writes:
There can be grace to remembrance, after all. We remember that we are dust and that we will return to dust, and by remembering, we invite ourselves and one another to learn how to live in this fatal time between.[1]
Friends, I know that people often think Ash Wednesday is a morbid holy day, but what if it’s actually a lifegiving observance. This might be a top three holiday for me as a Christian, because of how it starkly interrupts our busy and fevered lives.
Today’s focus can be stunning, to be sure. It’s heart wrenching, emotional, and poignant to think about death and the fragility of life, but it can also be empowering. Ash Wednesday can be so in at least two ways:
- Naming death as fact turns us into something honest and informs how we live our life NOW.
- Naming death as a fact reminds us of our need for a savior, and in-so-doing, reminds us that we have One.
On this note, I borrow a phrase from the pastor, Jeremiah Wright: You’ve got to name it if you’re gonna tame it! Meaning, you’ve got to talk about the hard things if they’re ever going to be reconciled. Think of a medical doctor – they’ve got to diagnose it if they’re ever going to cure it. Name it if you’re gonna tame it.
Incidentally, Jesus took this approach, too! He often did something fascinating when confronting the demonic in the gospels. He’d come face to face with a demon and he’d demand its name. For example, from Luke 8:
27 As [Jesus] stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him…30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged [Jesus] not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Naming the evil in front of him Jesus gained power over it – the demons recoiled upon being named!
And folks, if we’re ever going to truly live, we must name the fact that we’re not going to live forever. Name it if you’re gonna tame it.
In naming the reality of death we power move it. We treat it as informative fact, rather than sweeping it under the rug and spending our life tripping over it! So, on Ash Wednesday we name it; we stare at our death before our death stares at us.
And after disarming death by naming it, we can perhaps live more deeply now! –which is an ultimate hope for Jesus, who said in today’s Gospel that he came to this world so that we could have life and have it abundantly.
And because Jesus said this, a philosopher named Peter Rollins argues that the ultimate question of Christianity is not: is there life after death? Rather, the question of Christianity is: can there be life before death? [2]
In our Gospel today, Jesus is declaring that he doesn’t want us only for the afterlife – what a miserable, shallow reduction of our religion, to make it only about the afterlife! Jesus wants us to live life abundantly NOW! –and it is in no longer denying death that we can begin to truly live abundantly before it.
Free from death denial, we can live into the things that truly matter with the precious time that we have.
And the ashes on our foreheads, today, can help us do this; it’s a ritual of facing the reality of our mortality. We are dust. Today’s ashes remind us that we are miraculous, temporary, conglomerations of matter, perishing every single day.
We can pretend not to hear that…OR, we can accept it and turn back into our lives with a sense of urgency and wonder, cherishing the beauty of the world, the depth and density of our relationships, the callings and purposes of our life, loving people deeply, finding joy in simply being; we can live, and live abundantly.
And the ashes in the shape of a cross, remind us that we have a Savior who holds us in life and in death, and held by our Savior’s love, we can up beyond death’s overwhelming grip, to live, and live abundantly.
So, with all that, I want you to take a moment, close your eyes. Imagine yourself on your deathbed. There are minutes left in your life on earth. Go to that place. Try to face it with acceptance. Imagine this inevitable scene with the words of 2nd Timothy…you’ve fought the good fight; the course of life’s race is nearly over… … … … …
…Now, my friends, come back; open your eyes… …You have today. … … … Jesus says to you: “I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly. How will you live?”
Some poetry from Walt Whitman now seems fitting:
…The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse![3]
Friends, we’ll all die someday. The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
Amen.
[1] Rachel Rim, “We are all going to die,” in The Christian Century, February 2024, 73.
[2] Peter Rollins in “Episode 29 – Philosophy and Radical Theology,” The Liturgists Podcast, TheLiturgists.com, http://www.theliturgists.com/podcast/2015/12/14/episode-29-philosophy-and-radical-theology.
[3] Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself,’ in Leaves of Grass (New York: Barnes & Nobles Classics, 1993), 229.
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