Prepare the Way

“The Joy of Easter Begins”- Dr. Tom Dickerson, Pastor

It is said that the only things that are certain are death and taxes. The fact is, everyone dies. When a person is sick and asks for prayers for healing, even if Jesus heals them, that person will still die eventually, just like everyone else in the Gospels whom Jesus healed. Ash Wednesday is a date in the church calendar that helps believers prepare for Lent and Easter with the reminder that humans are mortal. 

The reason everyone dies can be found in Genesis 3, which also contains words often used in liturgy on Ash Wednesday. Adam and Eve sinned against God when they ate from the tree. As a result, God cursed human beings and creation itself. This event is known as the fall. 

Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.””

Death may be inevitable, but it is still painful. John 11 is just one example of many in the Bible of believers experiencing grief because of death. Jesus himself cries in the story (v. 35). But Jesus points the family of Lazarus to the hope of life after death. When Lazarus’s family was dealing with death, Jesus promised them life (vv. 25–26). 

John 11:25–26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?””

In John 11, Jesus does not just promise future life; he demonstrates the truth of that promise by raising Lazarus from the dead (vv. 43–44).

John 11:43–44 “When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.””

Believers can know that resurrection is real because Jesus demonstrated it during his ministry and time on earth (v. 40). Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and, even before his own resurrection, showed believers that what happens to the body after death (v. 39) is not an obstacle to God’s power. Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life and is victorious over death. 

Yet we often doubt God’s Power

Think about Peter—he started sinking when he took his eyes off Jesus while walking on water. On Ash Wednesday, it’s a joyful thought that even amidst our struggles, God can lift us back up. Just like Peter, we may face moments of doubt and distraction, but there’s no obstacle too daunting that God’s power can’t handle! Keeping our focus on Him transforms the impossible into an incredible testament of faith. Let’s embrace that freedom!

So tonight, I want us to focus on these marks we have on our foreheads. These ashes.

There are two meanings for these ashes. On the one hand they are Ashes of Ruin. They remind us that everything burns.

They remind us of our mortality. When we placed the ashes on your forehead, we spoke the dark and familiar words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is good for us to remember how frail life is. As much as we hate to admit it, one day each of us will be reduced to dust. Our flesh will fail. Through these ashes we are reminded that life is a gift from God, not to be taken for granted.

The Ashes of Ruin also remind us of the messiness of life. No matter how hard we try, or how much we pretend, we mess up, don’t we? Look around again. Look at the person that you think has it all together. Now look at their forehead. They don’t. They harbor bitterness, or envy, or greed, or pride, or lust, or malice, or fear. Just like you.

On a day like today we come together to be humbled by our sin. Like the prophets of old, we are called to repent. We are called out on the carpet and we admit that life is messy and we are imperfect and we are powerless to make ourselves clean.

The reasoning behind fasting and prayer is that we deny ourselves of something good in order to slow down the pace of our lives. Fasting is the process of purposefully bringing ourselves into the wilderness, to join Jesus as he spent 40 days in the desert and then was tempted by Satan. It is a time to let God search our hearts with a microscope to see what needs to be cleaned out.

There are many things to pray for, like my family. But this season I am going to focus my prayer on something very specific. I’m going to pray for our students, especially our Seniors who are about to make a huge step this year from high school to college, career, or out into the world. I encourage each of you to focus your prayer and on something specific. Ask God to show you how you should pray.

So, these ashes of Ruin break us down, and call us to prayer and fasting. With soot on our faces we are humbled and reduced to the pile of ashes that we are. It’s like kids at schools that require uniforms, it brings everyone to the same place in their dress, as to not make that issue a distraction.

Ash Wednesday is a time for humility and introspection.

Yet we are to be encouraged because these ashes have a second meaning. Not only are they the remains of our burnt up lives, they are also Ashes of Rebirth.

I came across a wonderful essay on a blog called Seeds of Shalom, written by Daniel G. Deffenbaugh. He reflects on the ashes and connects them to the creation of Adam. He says…

“Adam is in fact a play on words, for the first man was formed from adamah, the Hebrew word for the good, dark humus into which God sank his knees when breathing the breath of life into the human form beneath him. ‘And the man became a living being … Lent is surely Adam’s season, for if the truth be told, his weaknesses, his fears, his very fallible nature, his grubby face, are still very much our own, and they will be until our return to the earth from which we were made…Like Adam being brought forth from the earth, I want to wear on my forehead the ashes of creation. I want to take strange comfort in the fact that from dust I came and to dust I shall return.”

I also learned something else about ashes this week that was pretty interesting. I learned how soap is made. Soap is the combination of ash and fat. That’s right. Back in the old days, people would save the ashes from their fires and save the grease drippings from their cooking, and then combine them to make soap.

That’s what is on your forehead right now? It is a combination of the ashes from the burnt up palm branches of last year’s Palm Sunday combined with Olive Oil. Oil is fat. Ashes and fat. You have soap on your forehead.

Plus the oil is the same oil that was used when you were baptized, to be the sign of the Holy Spirit in your life. Isn’t that just like God? The black smudge that represents your sin and disgrace is the very same thing that represents the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit at work in your life.

You see, while Lent is a season of fasting and introspection, it is also a season full of hope and excitement.

We don’t have to mope around.

Diane Bass said it this way-

“The journey to Easter is not a mournful denial of our humanity. Rather, Lent embraces our humanity – our deepest fears, our doubts, our mistakes and sins, our grief, and our pain. Lent is also about joy, self-discovery, connecting with others, and doing justice. Lent is not morbid church services. It is about being fully human and knowing God’s presence in the crosshairs of blessing and bane. And it is about waiting, waiting in those crosshairs, for resurrection.

Have you ever noticed how some people wear their ash markings proudly, while others try to hide them? It’s like our faith sometimes. Some wear their beliefs on their sleeves, while others are hesitant to show any signs. But isn’t it wonderful that God calls us to be authentic? Just like the ash on our foreheads reminds us of our humanity, it’s a call to be genuine about our faith journey.

I once saw a person wearing ashes on their forehead who accidentally entered a fast-food restaurant. A kid pointed and shouted, 'Look, that person has dirt on their face!' It reminded me how easily we can overlook the beauty of spiritual practices like Ash Wednesday. We might get confused looks or feel out of place, but remember, those marks of faith show the world we’re on a purposeful journey, one that will ultimately lead us closer to God.