my only love

give out to give in

An Ash Wednesday sermon on Jesus' Good Shepherd Sermon:

Shortly we will be marked with ashes. Ashes made from the branches we triumphantly waived on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday, that day we let ourselves dream, if only for a day, that the path to Easter would be an easy one. Tonight, though, we are marked with the ashes of that dream. 

But that isn’t the only dream of ours to have gone down in ashes. Is it? There are ashes of other dreams that we are marked by this evening. None of us walk such a cleared path that we don’t come through these doors unmarked by the ashes of dreams that have come to nothing.

There are the garden-variety fantasies. Idle dreams of a bigger bank account, a larger home, and a sports car, too. All to go with that winning smile, trim waistline, and, while we’re at it, full head of hair.

But then there are the ashes of other dreams. Aren’t there? Dreams that are closer to the heart. Dreams that reveal our deepest desires and most fervently held aspirations. 

Dreams like a picture-perfect family, a fulfilling career, a long marriage, a blissful retirement, a clean bill of health, and strong and lasting friendships, too. Dreams that don’t include pandemics or threats of world wars. Dreams where friendships last, families hold together, and no one is laid to rest too soon.

There’s no shortage of dreams of ours that have gone up in smoke. Is there? And tonight, we’re marked with the ashes of them all. And more, too. 

You will be told something when you come forward to be marked with these ashes tonight. Words will be repeated to you that come from the very first book of the Bible. Words that earnest Christians have whispered to each throughout the years on nights like this. 

And this is how dictum goes; “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” You know it. You’ve heard these words before. You’ve been marked by them. And tonight, you will be marked by them again.

Tonight we are marked with the ashes of that most persistent of dreams, the dream that we won’t taste death. The dream that we are the master of our fate and the captain of our soul. The dream that we will forever be self-sufficient and perfectly capable, too. 

Tonight, though, we put that dream away and, if only for a night, step forward. Step forward to be marked with the truth that that dream is just that, a dream. And it’s a dream that’s destined to come to nothing more than ashes, at best.

They say we must approach seeing each other as God sees us on Christmas Eve. And no doubt, catching a glimpse of one another bathed in soft candlelight and caught up in the reverie of those splendid hymns is a vision to behold. But I think we see one another, and ourselves, best tonight. Tonight, when the ashes of those dreams of ours that have gone down in flames are visible. 

Now, on its own, this vision is most certainly a distressing one. And advertisers know this all too well. They play on this apprehension of ours to get us to purchase all manner of unnecessary products. Stuff that pretends to have the capacity to shore up our uneasiness about this tragic condition of ours. 

Tonight, though, we’re marked with the ashes of that illusion. And if you let it, this clear-eyed appraisal of our predicament will not only free you from the empty promises of all those thieves and bandits out there. It will also drive you to look elsewhere for hope. And as the Church knows full-well on a night like this, it’s right when you look your dashed hopes square in the eye that you see Jesus and his hard-won redemption looking right back at you!

Dreams are just fine. But they’re no more than that. They’re dreams. And dreams aren’t real! Putting your hope in something that doesn’t even exist is a surefire recipe for soul-deadening despondency. 

What the cross reveals, if nothing else, is that Jesus’ redemption is all too real. It doesn’t shy away from those places in life where hopes and dreams alike are scattered hither and yon. And the ashes we carry with us through these doors bear witness to the fact that we’ve wandered through such valleys of that shadow of death.

We all know each other pretty well by now. And you and I know full-well each one of us is lugging around the shards of shattered dreams. Dreams like ________. But the promise Christ gives to us tonight is that he has transformed that rocky ground of life into the mount of his Golgotha triumph!

What Jesus does tonight is, like the woman at the well, take the place where all our dreams have come to nothing and give us his everything in turn right there! The woman at the well had known failed relationship after failed relationship. Hadn’t she? But it was right there, in the middle of all that heartache, that Jesus promised himself and all his steadfast love to her, come what may!

These ashes and the truth they reveal are no cause for consternation. On the contrary, they are your claim to Jesus and his salvation! For Christ comes to meet you nowhere else than where your life cries out for redemption. The ashes of your dreams are, in all reality, the fodder for a real encounter with Christ and his deliverance in your life as it actually is!

These ashes you are marked with tonight do not mark you for ruination. No, they mark you for redemption! For they are the sign that you are just the kind of sheep Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has come to claim! As we say at funerals, “Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.” These ashes mark you as one of Jesus’ own, claimed and redeemed!

After Eden, God subjected creation to futility. And the ashes of all our dreams bear witness to that. But, God subjected this old world to futility, not in anger, but in hope! Hope that creation itself would be set free from this bondage to decay by Jesus and his redemption. And that mark on your brow tonight bears witness to that!

Soon you will be marked with ashes, yes. But here’s the deal, those ashes are a tracing. You are marked in ashes where you were first marked in anointing oil at your baptism! And in your baptism, Jesus marked you for his redemption by the sign of his cross! 

The mark you are marked with tonight is none other than the shape of the cross! The cross, the shape of Christ’s salvation! The shape of your redemption. The shape of your greatest hope in life! And, in death, too. 

And this hope, it will not disappoint you. No, on the contrary, it will become for you, like Saint Paul before you, your ground for boasting! For this cross will the sign of place Christ met you in the crush of life and put you together in the shape of his salvation! The shape of his cross!