First Things
There was an Ash Wednesday when the only oil I had to mix with the ashes was clove oil, an unwise choice as I learned. I didn’t know the stuff burned crazy on the skin, and if left on too long would leave a red mark one could see in the mirror the next morning. I didn’t really start feeling it until about halfway through the sermon. I had been the first one to receive ashes, and then my parishioners started catching up with me. They did let me stay on a while longer as pastor, but I still think my farewell reception was poorly attended.
But then we call the central act of Ash Wednesday the Imposition of Ashes, don’t we? Maybe it should burn a little and leave a mark—no pain, no gain, they say; no cross, no crown. Death intrusively imposes itself upon us, sometimes in the oddest ways, with aged gerbils and sheep disappearing down the road and boats a man will never sail in again. “Remember,” I will say as I impose the ashes upon my people next Wednesday, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” They do not need me to remind them. “Change and decay around is all I see,” intones the old hymn.
For all the losses we endure in life until we have lost life itself there is, we will say in our liturgy, this hope: “Bring us with all your saints to the joy of Christ’s resurrection.” Never are we left in the dust.
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