Why the Ash?
A Meditation on Mortality
When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” [Matthew 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance
Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortifications of the flesh.
(The 1st and 3rd of Luther’s 95 Theses)
As we approach the season of Lent, it might do us well to consider the meaning of the ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday. They are a symbol of our mortality and the corruption of our flesh, and provide a visible, pedagogical signal that the Church is entering a season of penitence (Lent) in preparation for the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord.
Without the context of the Church calendar, their purpose can become less meaningful, and onlookers may regard them as useless Popery, a badge of ignorance, superstition, and an external substitute for actual penitence. There is indeed a danger of this rite becoming these things.
However, as with much in the liturgical tradition of the Church, many have retained the practice due to its value when properly understood. Thus Lutherans, Anglicans, and some other groups that are more liturgically-minded continue the practice, despite its potential to be misunderstood.
Ashes as a symbol of corruption and mortality is gleaned from both Scripture and nature, as we see in Genesis 3 that Adam, the origin of all flesh, is condemned to “return to dust”. The body formed of dust and animated by the breath of God, due to sin, will disintegrate, and the life of the body will depart from it. Intuitively, we also understand ash to be an ultimate state of decomposition or disintegration, as when a house or a body is burned and reduced to ash.
They are therefore a natural sign of corruption, mortality, and decomposition.
As children of Adam, we inherit from him flesh that is corrupted by sin and on-track to fall apart from the moment of conception. Indeed, the whole world has been subjected to corruption since the fall. We do not need the application of ash to know this, but the ashes serve to remind us of the fact. As a corporate act, they signal that the Church is going to be more mindful of this reality during the season of Lent. As all flesh is like grass, that gets scattered by the wind and forgotten, so too are our lives as a vapor that appears for a moment and then dissipates. Recollection of the transience of life under the curse serves to detach us from this world in its fleeting form in order that we will cling to what is permanent.
Those who feel at home in the world in its corrupted state are in danger of perishing with it. For this reason, the Church has always taught and encouraged its members to a kind of detachment, though not one that denies the inherent goodness of creation. Rather, it is a withdrawal from the world insofar as it is corrupted, in preparation and hope of the world restored to good order. It is fundamentally not about denial, but a fuller participation in creation in its restored and glorified form.
Knowing how great the temptation of the world is, and how relentlessly Satan and our own flesh work to bring us down with them, we remind ourselves of their impermanence. In a short time, they will be utterly defeated, while those who cling to Christ and look forward to the restored creation will live forever.
The ash, a substance characterized by utter disintegration and formlessness, shows us their end. It shows what our mortal bodies will soon become. This visible reminder prepares us to gratefully receive from Christ his own indestructible life, for we are not held captive by the illusion that this world and its ways are the ultimate reality. Christ’s bodily resurrection shows us what awaits us who do not love the world and its corrupted ways.
The entire Lenten season, then, becomes an exercise in discipline of the mind and the body, so that neither of these will, by their twisted desires, lead us down the path of destruction. We may fast and devote more time to things with permanent significance, such as prayer and acts of charity.
The Sundays in Lent are regarded as miniature Easters, as indeed every Sunday can be regarded as a miniature Easter, the day on which our Lord rose from the grave. The remaining 40 days become for us a 40-day season in the wilderness, in which worldly and impermanent things are stripped from our hearts, testing and preparing us as God tested the children of Israel before they entered the promised land.
We endure in patience and faith, carrying with us a dying body of corrupted flesh. This is the short season of mortality we must all pass through. As each Sunday is a miniature Easter, the season of Lent is a miniature version of the entirety of mortal life. The ashes on one day are not necessary, but they help to remind us, as we so often forget, what we are without Christ, who has turned this curse of mortality into the means of eternal life.
“Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)