God’s Commitment to Our Death
Every year, on Ash Wednesday, in a way that feels both fresh and familiar, I remember again that the receiving of the ashes is always described in the liturgy not as a sign of our fasting, but as a mark of our mortal nature. The ashes are given to us to remind us of the work God is doing within us, which is, in fact, our death.
Our death.
I know, you want to move away from that: “Yeah, but also our resurrection…” But no—the work God is doing within us brings about our death. He is profoundly committed, far more so than we are, to root out all the things that make us less than Jesus. And this includes our commitments to what others might consider to be normal: self-preservation, self-centered desires and life on our own terms.
Death to Self-Preservation
It’s not about rooting out that which is obviously evil, the things most of us know are wrong. God is always at work doing that. But instead, it’s about getting behind those obvious things to look at our interior motivation, which only God can, in fact, reveal—and, once he reveals them, can actually do something about.
I can, with the help of Chantix or something else, stop smoking (I actually did that at one point, thanks be to God.) But what the medication doesn’t touch is the desire underneath that, which is to do whatever I want and still claim immortality. That’s something only God can get at to root out and deal with, and he is completely and utterly committed to our transformation, which means he is completely and utterly committed to our death.
All the things that stand in the way, including my own commitment to self-preservation, make me somehow in opposition to God’s self-giving purposes if they stand in opposition to the availability God wants me to have for service to other people.
Death to Self-Centered Desires
Does that feel slightly uncomfortable? When you heard Isaiah’s words: “Is this not the fast I have chosen … to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house” (Isa. 58:6-7). There is a kind of status comfort there. In other words, I want to live my life in a way that allows me to love Jesus and be available for service—and still pretty much get whatever I want.
The good news is that God does, over time, change our desires. And because that’s so, what begins to happen is, in fact, in those times of genuinely sacrificial service, even if it feels just awful in the moment, you still have the sense that God is using you for something bigger than your need to satisfy your own desires.
Ash Wednesday, and the imposition of ashes, is a liturgical way of saying yes to God’s commitment to our death. It’s a way, in essence, of saying to God, “As far as I even know how, knowing that even saying that is a gift of grace, please come–and don’t just lop off morally wrong, inconvenient things that I know that I do from time to time, but dig deeper, much, much deeper, oh God, in my life. Get at the places in my heart where I still want to rule and reign. Open my life in deeper ways to the capacity to be able to serve. Challenge me, Oh Lord.”
Death to Life on Our Own Terms
I believe the relentless love of God not only sees the outward sin and inner motivation but even underneath that. He sees the seeds of his own salvific work, which is crying out, even from out of a pit, for God to rescue us from all those things that stand in our way, that keep us from him and the deep union he desires to work within us.
There is within, you see, the believing Christian, a profound cry—even if it’s never, ever voiced—that somehow life would not be as I want it, on my own terms. But that life would be as he desires: unhindered.
And so this is a liturgical way of expressing all that desire. Fearfully, wonderfully, even hesitantly saying, “Yes, I am but dust. Do that, Oh God, that I might know the joy of my salvation. Amen.”
How has Jesus shown his commitment to your death? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on Feb. 14, 2018, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.