A lingering illness in a normally healthy person can bring intimations of mortality, even if it is a minor illness. So can one of those birthdays that end in a “0”. Even those who seem to defy the aging process face these thoughts sooner or later. Football quarterback Brett Favre has never lost his boyish enthusiasm for the game, but on January 24 as he limped off the field with his grey stubble at the end of the game, he sure looked every bit the oldest quarterback in the NFL. At a certain age, most people begin to imagine the time when they will no longer be walking on this earth and evaluate the meaning of their life so far and what they might accomplish in the days they have left.
The theme for Ash Wednesday is from Genesis 3:19 where God speaks to Adam as he is sent out of the Garden of Eden: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Each year as ashes are applied to the foreheads of the faithful, these words are spoken: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Sometimes when the minister speaks these words to an aging or ill person, they seem very power, almost too truthful. At other times when the minister touches the clear skin of a youth or child, they seem like a cruel reminder that this child will not always be so young, innocent, or cheerful. But it is the hard truth of human life.
Recently a fellow minister asked a group of us what our favorite Bible verse is. That is a hard question because there are so many verses that speak to so many different situations with power. Impulsively, I said “Isaiah 40:8” which reads “The grass withers, the flower fades but the Word of our God will stand forever.” Why was that? Was it because we have it on a poster in our parish office? Missionary Bernice Johnson gave us this poster with pressed flowers from Madagascar on it, and I framed it to preserve both the words and the dried flowers (in contradiction to the very meaning of the verse!) Or was it because I read many years ago in a novel, whose title I have forgotten, that a favorite verse of the Puritans in Massachusetts often quoted and printed was the simple phrase that leads up to Isaiah 40:8 in verse 6: “All flesh is grass.” My recollection is that a youth pondered this verse often as he looked at it printed on a cup in his austere Puritan home. It was a major theme of the novel.
Some people think it is overly morbid to think about the end, but, as Ecclesiastes 3 says, there is a time for everything. Ash Wednesday is a time to consider who we are, what we are, and how long we have on this earth. Ecclesiastes 3 also says in verse 11: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind….” (RSV translation of a difficult verse to translate).
Thoughts of mortality lead to thoughts of eternity, just as the forty days of Lent begin with a somber reminder of human mortality and end with the glorious proclamation of the gift of eternal life for all who are in Christ. The journey through Lent takes us through the suffering and death of Jesus, which is the one and only reason that we can have any confidence that we will not fade from this earth into endless oblivion. “Because I live, you will live also,” Jesus said in John 14:19.
But just as Jesus had to face death in order to rise to eternal life, so we must ponder our own mortality before we can confidently believe we will live forever with him. And so we will soon plunge into Lent, a somber and sober season. But Lent is a prelude to Easter. Liturgically it developed as a preparation to celebrate the true center of the church year: the Festival of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Throughout the forty days of Lent and the fifty days of Easter let us proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died; Chris
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