Ash Wednesday – A public ‘holy’-day?

There is a joke about a little boy who had been at an “Ash Wednesday” service for the first time. Later that day the little boy is at home when he suddenly runs up to his mother looking very worried. His mother asks what is bothering him. He replies, “Mummy, at the service today, they said that we are from the dust and to dust we shall return.” The mother explains that this was indeed true, but she asked why her son was so troubled. “Mummy” he replied “I was getting my teddy bear from under my bed. It was very dusty there. I think there might be someone either coming or going under my bed!”

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

It is interesting to discover how few nations in the world actually celebrate Ash Wednesday as a public holiday. The shortlist of such countries includes East Timor, Jamaica, Haiti and Panama. The bigger industrial nations, even those with Christmas, Good Friday and Easter as public holidays, like Australia, don’t pause for Ash Wednesday as a public holiday.

This suggests to me that the message of our mortality and the connection between our mortality and the promise of life and salvation through the work of the cross of Christ are not easily translated into “holidays”. “New Birth” at Christmas and “New Life” at Easter keep getting traction, but not so much a message that says “Remember you are dust”.

Ash Wednesday is when many Christians choose to receive the sign of the cross with ash on their foreheads, as they hear the words: “Remember you are dust – and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday is the special day in the Christian calendar, that is particularly designed to remind us that we are each, a son or daughter of the earth who will one day die. Each of us is a sinner for whom Christ died.

This may not be “popular press” material, or “public holiday material” but in the Church we know that Ash Wednesday is about looking through the lens of the cross at ourselves, at each other and at the world, to remember that we are the ones for whom Christ went to the cross and died … because of his great love for us.

Many of our leaders in our Lutheran Schools and Lutheran Communities put in the hard yards to help people get tuned into the message of Ash Wednesday. God bless all the people who prepare Ash Wednesday services and devotions so that the people in their care are better trained to look through that lens of the cross at themselves and at others so that we might all know that God has loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Paul