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The Reverend Philip Banks writes:

Lent 2009 - why ashes?

Jesus says: "Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them" (Matthew 6:1).

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the church’s season of Lent, and the liturgy provides for us to receive ashes on our foreheads in the Ash Wednesday services. Given Jesus’ strong criticism of ‘outward piety’, we might well ask, "Why has it been the custom for many generations, even before the time of Jesus, to use ashes in this way?” Jesus’ words echo a profoundly biblical teaching about the need to beware of any kind of religious pretence or hollow religiosity.

Ashes in the history of the church, however, have always been a sign, a reminder, and an invitation to us as we try to live out lives of Christian faith, generosity and love.

SIGN: Archaeologists tell us that the people of Israel were not alone in using ashes in rituals of purification. Ashes appear in Phoenician burial art and Arabic expressions. Ashes were a sign of grief, mourning, humility and penitence. When Job loses everything, he “sits among the ashes”. Cursed and overrun by enemies, the Psalmist “eats ashes like bread, and mingles tears with drink.” Ashes are what are left after destruction. After chaos or catastrophe, ashes are what remain.

REMINDER: Ashes also remind us of our common origin. The second chapter of Genesis tells of how we were created from the dust of the ground. Though we may spend our lives trying to distinguish ourselves from others, running after success or trying to feel different from others, the dust and ashes remind us that we are all made of the same stuff. We are reminded not only of our beginning but also of our end. On the First Day of Lent, ashes are used with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those words apply to us all.

INVITATION: While ashes may be a sign and a reminder for us, they also invite. They invite us to turn again to God and to receive new life. They invite us to repentance. Isaiah brings glad tidings to the people of Israel, “to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” Ashes are not the end but are just the beginning. They begin a church season that should help to move each one of us through the silence and longing and the Passion and death of Christ, into a season of joy and resurrection at Easter. The ashes invite us to the keeping of a holy and godly Lent, so that we may enjoy properly the annual celebration of the Easter Mystery.

Whatever you do this Lent – spending more time in prayer, extra charitable giving, reading, Lent Course, giving things up – may the season help you in your journey with the Lord, so that you may be transformed closer into his likeness to be the person that God would have you be. The ashes invite us into this Lenten journey.

So – may the remembrance of the ashes of Ash Wednesday stay with you this Lent as a sign of our humility, and of the sin of the world and our part in it. May they be a reminder of our common humanity and our destiny. But more than anything, may the ashes invite us this Lent into God's presence, into God's love, and into God's promise and gift of new life for us now in this life and in the life beyond life.

This comes with my love and prayers,

Fr Philip Banks

Ashes for Ash Wednesday come from the burning of last year’s Palm Crosses