Every year this day and this season come around. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. This year is a little different, along with many other children, my daughter will come before me to receive ashes in chapel. On her forehead will be the sign of the cross and she will hear ancient words that have echoed the sacred rite, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." I am reminding her (and me) of the mortality we all possess.
I recall a time when she was an infant, and I was holding her in my arms. Pure innocence with nothing but the world and an entire lifetime before her, thinking to myself, "from the day we are born, we all have the same destiny." There was no sadness, this is not about willing anything into being, but rather the realization that in that moment I held life- fragile, flawed impermanent but beautiful life- in my arms.
This kind of thinking comes about perhaps because she was born on a Friday- a Good Friday to be exact; a day to think about death since Christians observe the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus.
But it is also a time to think about about life. The story of Jesus doesn't end on Good Friday- it begins there. Easter and resurrection have no meaning without the events of Good Friday. That we say Christ defeated death means something when the first song of Easter says,
Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout salvation, For behold the victory of our mighty King!
This song is called the Exultet and is goes back nearly 1600 years. It is specifically sung at the Great Vigil of Easter- which is a deep and profound liturgy that moves from darkness to light- symbolically from death to life. Personally, this song one of my favorite aspects of this ancient liturgy.
On Ash Wednesday, we are called to reflect on our mortality, of our need to say "I'm sorry" and to repent and be reconciled with God and with others. Jesus invites us to "take up our cross" and follow him on a journey to Jerusalem and to Calvary itself. In other words, we are called to die. It is not a literal death-though admittedly in parts of world where Christian persecution still exists- this metaphor is a reality. We are invited to die to old self, leaving behind the sin, the shame, and the emptiness in order that our hearts might be filled with the power of the grace, love, forgiveness and redemption so many of us desperately need to hear. In doing so, we embrace Easter joy and resurrection. The knowledge that not even death itself can separate us from the love of God.
So on Ash Wednesday, I put ashes on my daughter's head. I remind her with ancient words that for a child of 7 have little meaning but for her grey haired old man means so much- that she will one day die. "you are dust, and to dust you shall return" I tell her. Her fate in this world is a certainly- the same as all of us.
But.
In the faith, there is something unique. In the service for funerals in the Book of Common Prayer there is a concluding prayer: "All of us go down to the dust, but even at the grave we make our song, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia." In the Christian faith, it is because of the work of Easter where resurrected life conquers death, that death does not have the final say. Death itself is not the end.
There are times I catch myself holding her a hand a little tighter or hugging her and not wanting to let go in a desperate attempt to hold on to these moments of life. Because I too have ashes on my forehead. I am reminded of my mortality, my limits, my flawed self, and the forces that have shaped who I am and what I am called to be.
I have heard the words of the dust of death. Still, my song is Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. And I will teach my beloved daughter to sing it too.
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