STM: Out Of Ashes
Ash Wednesday
Out of Ashes
I don’t know how widespread this practice is, but I remember in the fall in North Dakota, when many of the farmers used to burn off the stubble that remained in the fields after the harvest. Driving down the roads you could see the smoke rising from field to field and dispersing in a thin cloud across the sky. And as the sun set, it would grow red and fiery as its light filtered through the smoky sky. When it reached the horizon it looked as though it was the flame that had set all these fields ablaze. Then it would grow dark, and all that would remain was the rich,thick, sweet smell of the burnt foliage. The farmers said the burning would take out the last, remaining difficult weeds and the ashes would nourish the soil for the coming spring planting. No one was unhappy about this burning because we expected that in the spring, new budding plants would rise out of the ashes.
They might have been on to something. Now we are told that the occasional forest fire is beneficial to the woodlands, thinning overgrown and ragged stands of trees and freeing up air and space and access to light for young, new plants.
Out of the ashes, new life, new hope.
Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, a penitential and reflective time when we consider our sinfulness and the awesome power over that of Christ’s redemption. A time look to the temptation and trial of Jesus, the fiery ordeal of his suffering and crucifixion and death. We think of the burning love that drove God to such lengths and the hope and promise that bodes for we who have been marked by another cross, the cross of baptism.
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a season when we cast into the fire of repentance those things that prevent us from feeling God’s love, from walking in his path. When we struggle to dispense with those odd “treasures” we carry around of anger and self-righteousness, of greed and suspicion, of doubt and our insatiable desire to go it on our own. These are the weeds which surround and choke the growing plant, that need the coaxing of the flame to release us.
Ash Wednesday. We have had a cross of ashes marked on our foreheads, with the words, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Dry, dusty ashes to remind us of the fleeting nature of our lives, the destructive consequences of our sinfulness, but also of the promise of new life, of rebirth. Knowing that the ashes, the dust of our existence is enough for God to work with, to create and renew and remold to his purpose and his glory for the sake of his Son.
Spring always came to North Dakota, and sure enough the fields would soon take on the hue of new life as row after row of the spring crop would break through the crusty, dusty field. And that sun, which as a child I just knew had set fire to those crops the year before, would shine mightily on these fields. And the plants would grow and thrive another year.
There is the sun we anticipate as we traverse this Lenten season, the Son who rose from the dust of the grave, the sun of Easter, the rising of the Light of the World, whose warm and forgiving presence calls us out again and again . . . so that out of the ashes of this day, this season, this world, we may, too, may rise again, growing, journeying toward eternal life. Amen
Copyright (c) 2002 by Pastor Robert J. Rasmus
Out of Ashes
I don’t know how widespread this practice is, but I remember in the fall in North Dakota, when many of the farmers used to burn off the stubble that remained in the fields after the harvest. Driving down the roads you could see the smoke rising from field to field and dispersing in a thin cloud across the sky. And as the sun set, it would grow red and fiery as its light filtered through the smoky sky. When it reached the horizon it looked as though it was the flame that had set all these fields ablaze. Then it would grow dark, and all that would remain was the rich,thick, sweet smell of the burnt foliage. The farmers said the burning would take out the last, remaining difficult weeds and the ashes would nourish the soil for the coming spring planting. No one was unhappy about this burning because we expected that in the spring, new budding plants would rise out of the ashes.
They might have been on to something. Now we are told that the occasional forest fire is beneficial to the woodlands, thinning overgrown and ragged stands of trees and freeing up air and space and access to light for young, new plants.
Out of the ashes, new life, new hope.
Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, a penitential and reflective time when we consider our sinfulness and the awesome power over that of Christ’s redemption. A time look to the temptation and trial of Jesus, the fiery ordeal of his suffering and crucifixion and death. We think of the burning love that drove God to such lengths and the hope and promise that bodes for we who have been marked by another cross, the cross of baptism.
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a season when we cast into the fire of repentance those things that prevent us from feeling God’s love, from walking in his path. When we struggle to dispense with those odd “treasures” we carry around of anger and self-righteousness, of greed and suspicion, of doubt and our insatiable desire to go it on our own. These are the weeds which surround and choke the growing plant, that need the coaxing of the flame to release us.
Ash Wednesday. We have had a cross of ashes marked on our foreheads, with the words, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Dry, dusty ashes to remind us of the fleeting nature of our lives, the destructive consequences of our sinfulness, but also of the promise of new life, of rebirth. Knowing that the ashes, the dust of our existence is enough for God to work with, to create and renew and remold to his purpose and his glory for the sake of his Son.
Spring always came to North Dakota, and sure enough the fields would soon take on the hue of new life as row after row of the spring crop would break through the crusty, dusty field. And that sun, which as a child I just knew had set fire to those crops the year before, would shine mightily on these fields. And the plants would grow and thrive another year.
There is the sun we anticipate as we traverse this Lenten season, the Son who rose from the dust of the grave, the sun of Easter, the rising of the Light of the World, whose warm and forgiving presence calls us out again and again . . . so that out of the ashes of this day, this season, this world, we may, too, may rise again, growing, journeying toward eternal life. Amen
Copyright (c) 2002 by Pastor Robert J. Rasmus