Today is Ash Wednesday. We knew that - otherwise we would not be here in church at 7:30 on a Wednesday evening. And we know that Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent. But why the ashes? Why come here this evening just to walk out with a smudge of palm ash on our foreheads, made in the sign of Jesus' cross? Let me share with you three answers to that question.

Ashes are a sign of mortality.

Ashes are what is left over when the fire is gone. We talk about a fire as being dead when the flame is gone, the light is gone, the heat is gone, and there is no life left in it.

The Bible often uses the words ashes and dust interchangeaby to talk about our mortality. When Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden, they were told,

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19. When Abraham was pleading with God to save his nephew Lot from the destruction awaiting Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes." (Gen 18:27)

Ashes remind us that death is present in the midst of life. We often forget this and we become arrogant when we do. On Palm Sunday the crowds in Jerusalem who waved palm fronds had no idea how close esus' death on Calvary would be. Though they didn't know it, death was already present and waiting on that Palm Sunday. So it is that we take the palm fronds from one Palm Sunday and burn them to make ashes for the following Ash Wednesday.

Ashes are a sign of penance.

Ashes are a sign of penance. In Old Testament times, when one had done something wrong, and experienced guilt, and needed to make public confession in order to be restored to the community, the custom was to make a fast by refraining from food; to put on clothes of sackcloth and to go out and sit in the village's dust and ashes, and put dust and ashes on one's head. Jeremiah used the words in connection with the punishment which he saw coming: "Wail, you shepherds, and cry out; roll in ashes, you lords of the flock, for the days of your slaughter have come...and you shall fall like a choice vessel." (Jeremiah 25:33-34). Jesus also referred to the idea when he said, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you Beethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." (Matt 11:21 and Luke 10:13)

The ashes that we place on our forehead is the part of this custom which has survived to this day. It is a way of saying, "There are things that I'm sorry for" in sign language.

Ashes are a sign of mourning.

In the sharing of ashes, we claim solidarity with all who mourn. Ashes are a sign not only of penance, when we have done something wrong, but also of mourning when something terrible has happened to us even though we have done nothing wrong. King David's daughter Tamar was raped by her brother, and in the violation of her person she mourned the loss of safety, of family, of trust, of innocense. she mourned all that had been taken from her. "Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went." (2 Samuel 13:19, NIV)

Ashes are a sign of humility.

When Job was suffering the loss of everything he had, and his neighbors tried to give him words of wisdom, Job told them their words had little value. "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay. (Job 13:12) Job used those words of himself; looking at the sad level to which he had fallen, he said, He has cast me in the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. (Job 30:19). Finally, when Job finally encountered God, he said, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6)

Ashes are a mark.

The Bible is full of stories of protective marks. Cain in his guilt and remorse was given a mark by God as a sign of God's protection from all who seek to kill him. Ezekiel writes about a mark of protection: "Go through the city, through jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it." (Ezekiel 9:4-6). The writer of Revelation used the picture of a mark protecting Christians in the last days: "Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.

Tonight we will apply a smudge of ashes in the shape of a cross to indicate that this is not just any mark, but a mark that names us as followers of Christ. It is a sign of who we are, and whose we are.

Ashes harbor new life.

This is the core message I hope we can walk out with this evening.

Ashes are not useless. When we spread them on our gardens they add important nutrients to the soil. I believe the element potassium gets its name from pot ash. We are told to eat bananas because they are a rich source of potassium, which our own bodies need.

When we look at ashes, we can't see the new life, but it is there.

Have you ever taken an onion apart? Bring it home from the store and let it have some light and you will see how the onion contains new life. Take it apart until all the parts are lying on your table and you will not have found where the new life is coming from but it is there. I think of the onion as a spiritual image because though the source of that life is invisible, it is present, and that which you can't see is what gives life to the onion and makes it grow bright green shoots from the top.

Ashes are like that. You can examine them all you want for evidence of new life and you won't find it, but you can spread ashes on your garden and they will bring life to what is there.

I invite you to think of your own lives and to ask not only what there may be for which the words "I'm sorry" are appropriate, but to ask what may be waiting to grow. What in your lives is God secretly trying to bring to life? What new thing only needs a little encouragement, a little nurture, a little clearing away of weeds and thorns, a little sunlight and water -- and ashes -- to make it grow?