God in the Ashes

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our finitude. But it also reminds us of hope. This year I am reminded of a friend who is no longer among us because of cancer. Our friend’s last Ash Wednesday service was in 2023. As I write this, I’m remembering that Ash Wednesday service. We had learned that our friend’s treatment options had run out and that the journey to healing was changing. There are moments as a pastor which become anchors in your ministry. They shape you in ways you may not realize. I still remember the first wedding I officiated as a young man. I also remember my friend’s dad asking me if I gave honorarium refunds several years later when that marriage failed. (He was being funny). But that Ash Wednesday service still hits because it reminded me of how fragile human beings are. But it also reminds me of our tremendous capacity for living in spite of that fragility.

In the moment our friend came forward for the imposition of ashes, my heart caught a bit. As I spoke the phrase “from dust you came, to dust you shall return” and imposed ashes upon her forehead, the weight of those words weighed upon my heart. For in that moment those words were all too real. They were not a theoretical or far off idea. Those words were present in that moment and the weight of them hung in the air over the next several months as cancer’s destruction became inevitable. But that weight is not the totality of the story.

Cancer and other illnesses are a reality. They are often inexplicable in arbitrary ways. My father’s own death from cancer felt fresh when we first heard the diagnoses of our friend. The staff and spouses of staff who were able converged on our church building to pray. My wife and I are the only staff left from that moment, but it reminds me of the ways in which we are there in one another’s pain. When we are in those moments we are reflecting the image of God. None of us had any idea what the next five years would reveal, but we had optimism and sadness.

Over those years, our friend was an incredible encourager for my ministry. She had a knack for recognizing the things we all did well and highlighting those. She also managed to sing, play piano, and participate in the things she loved so well that she feared people would think she was faking being sick. But people knew. We had several close calls where health would fail, but rebound over the last few years. But in every moment our friend carried the beauty of God’s grace and love. She never wavered in her faithfulness.

From dust you came and to dust you shall return. God scoops up that dust. God gets down in the dust, the mud, the very muck of life. God is in the ashes left by pain, disease, and violence. God does not bring those by any means. But God is there with us in every moment. God is a God of empathy and the way God shows God’s empathy is through the person we emulate during Lent.

If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:1-11 NRSVue)

God is in the ashes, because God knows what it means to be human. That’s empathy. The kenotic picture in the Philippians passage is a picture of empathy. Of walking in our “sandals.” When I imposed ashes upon our friend’s forehead her last Ash Wednesday, I could do that without irony because I understood God was present in the ashes. God was present in her pain and God was sitting with her in that pain. God empathized in that pain and God empathizes with us in our pain, joy, fear, and simply being human.

Being present in suffering. Being present in pain. These are acts of empathy and of grace. God’s being of love may not be able to single handedly solve our pain in this world. But I know that God knows our pain deeply. A God who knows our pain would never inflict that pain. The God revealed in Jesus is not a pain bringer, but a pain bearer. God understands our finitude.