ASH WEDNESDAY 2008
A Sermon preached by the Reverend Robert Atwell at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill

Ashes are always significant. Perhaps the remains of a barbecue in the woods or of a bonfire in the back garden: signs of companionship or of a family outing. But ashes can also be signs of something terrible. When I was in New York recently, friends shared their memories of 9/11 and how for weeks afterwards when walking down their street in Lower Manhattan they would discover bits of ash, blown by the wind, caught in their hair or stuck on their clothing. Even more terrible must have been the ashes blown by the wind from the crematoria at Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Ashes may be signs of happiness and laughter; they may be signs of terror and unspeakable sorrow. Today ashes are a sign of penitence. In the Bible we often read of people who repented of their sins by putting on sackcloth and sprinkling their heads with ashes. Like all ancient customs the symbolism is rich and deep.

In the old Latin prayer books of the Middle Ages, today was called 'The Day of Ashes'. Since at least the tenth century in England, Christians have observed the beginning of Lent by marking their foreheads with ashes made from burning last year’s palm crosses. At our baptism the priest made the sign of the cross on our foreheads in oil as a sign of blessing. Today the priest makes the same sign in ash as a sign of sorrow for sin, saying, ‘Remember, O man, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. Turn away from sin, and be faithful to Christ.’

As we receive ashes on our foreheads, we are reminded that it is out of dust that we have come and that it is to dust that we shall return. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. They are precisely the words I say every time I stand at the edge of a grave or beside the catafalque at the crematorium.

Just as we fast because we are not ready to feast, so we also reflect on death because we are not ready to live. At any rate, we are not ready to live the full life that is both Christ’s will for us and his gift.

When we are young, we feel immortal, impregnable. All things seem possible. Thank goodness for the exuberance of youth. But as we grow older, we realise that we are only human after all: dust and ashes. We are fragile stuff.

My dad on the phone the other night said to me, ‘You know, it’s a sod getting old.’ And so it is. But the real curse of old age is not frailty but futility – the thought that all our actions and intentions are worth nothing.

I shy away from signs of my increasing age. Today I am reminded of my mortality, my solidarity with the rest of humanity in all ages, and I don’t like it. But the sooner I learn this bitter but ultimately liberating truth the better. After all, I’ve only got one life to live. This is it. This is my go. I need to make the most of it, and that means I need to repent of my sins, the times and occasions when I’ve fouled up. I need to ask for God’s forgiveness and grace, and to move on. And that includes accepting when other people say sorry and ask me for forgiveness. I need to stop nursing resentment. ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. The covenant of forgiveness stands at the heart of Lent.

‘Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood’, says T. S. Eliot in his poem, Ash Wednesday. Repentance is about abandoning the tricks of self-deceit and falsehood, turning our lives round and going in a new direction. Which is why in the end, repentance is an act of joy because I am turning to face Jesus Christ. And that means however terrible things are, there is unquenchable hope to be found in the rubble of my life, in the dust and ashes, because of the continuing presence of the One who intercedes for me and bares my sorrows.

In the Gospel is the story of the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. We hear how her accusers threw her down in front of Jesus demanding that she be stoned to death. To them Jesus said, ‘Let the one of you who is without sin, throw the first stone.’ And as he said this, St John says, he bent down and wrote in the dust.

It is the only time we are told Jesus ever wrote anything. And I have always wondered what it was that he wrote that day. I like to think that he wrote the words, ‘God loves you’. As Mother Julian of Norwich reminds us, ‘God looks at us with pity, not blame’. Would that we had the same attitude to one another.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It could be the beginning of a new way of living our life. So let us pray for grace to keep a holy Lent, that it may be life-transforming. May the God who created us out of dust and breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, the God who knows us, including our frailties, enfold us with the strength of his compassion. Today God writes in the dust, making the sign of his cross. It is the sign of our salvation and his forgiveness.