Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the one day a year in which we attempt, as Christians, to remember who we are. We remember from whence we have come. We remember exactly where it is we stand in the great cosmic scheme of all universal things. We remember. We remember, although we like to believe that God does not get dirty, that God can not be with that which is dirty, it was out of the stuff of the created universe that we were created, specifically the dirt. God reached down out of Holy Heaven and created a human or two. Two humans created out of the dirt, made of dirt, called from the beginning dirt, because after all that is what “adam” means. Although it may not be true that to sin is human (no that is what it means to be fallen) but it is true to be dirt is to be human. We remember that we are dirt. But not only are we dirt, but we are dirty due to sin and sin’s contamination, we are dirty. We are so full of sin. We fall from what it truly means to be human and fail to be clear reflections of the divine nature. We do not always love God with our whole hearts. We do not always love each other. We do not always do the things we should do and we all too often do things that we should not. We are dirty because we fail all too often at being images and reflections of God we were created to be. We remember that God-Jesus came to live in the dirt, among us, surround by these dirty humans. God lived alongside of the dirty humans, and showed us how to not be dirty. Showed us that, although we are dirt, we do not need to be dirty. And he died so that through the cleansing of his death we might, even as dirt, live clean lives, holy lives. That we can reflect the love of God, the truth of God, the nature of God, here on this earth. We remember that through Christ we are raised up out of all that is dirty. We remember that through Jesus Christ we are made clean. That there is hope for us dirt beings. We can be simply dirt, and not dirty dirt. We can be clean, holy, loving dirt. We remember that Christ died. And through the cleansing of his death we might live as clean dirt, holy dirt, holy ground. But also that we can, not only be holy ground, but that we might live holy ground, that our very lives, in the very act of living them, might be holy ground. We remember that this does not simply happen that this happens by living, by living as Christ lived. Following his example; living as he lived, speaking as he spoke, loving as he loved. So that we might as he was, be holy dirt. So we begin Lent remembering that we are dirt, that we are dirty dirt and, we through Christ, have hope of being clean dirt, holy dirt. We remember that being holy dirt is a journey. So today we remember that journey and we remember that that journey always has a beginning and we mark that beginning today, in Ash.