The Morning After Dying

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”  These words accompanied the imposition of ashes on my forehead last night as I attended our church’s Ash Wednesday service.  I sat with a sixth-grader to whom I am a mentor as he prepares for confirmation and I wondered what he, at his young age, thought about this reminder of human mortality.  Indeed, if he is like most people at any age, we would prefer to avoid talk of death.  So why does the church engage in this morbid ritual?  Hold that question a moment.

We are also in a season of political campaigning, with each candidate trying to prove her, or his, worth.  I can imagine how grueling a campaign can be for each candidate - never a moment’s rest.  I made the observation some years ago that all of us are engaged in a campaign of sorts.  Early on, as children, we seek our parent’s approval, wanting to please them.  Then we go to school, another arena in which we must prove ourselves worthy both to peers and teachers.  There follows a whole lifetime of proving ourselves to employers, customers, colleagues, etc.  The campaign to put our best foot forward is relentless, as if we are continually appealing to those around us, “Vote for me!  Vote for me!”  Isn’t it exhausting?  It seems as if the only relief we’ll get from this endless campaign is when we die . . .

And so, here is the blessing of Ash Wednesday and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  To be reminded of our mortality is to be set free from the campaign to prove ourselves.  The Christian message is that not only are we all mortal, but we have already died.  In baptism we have been buried, we have died to the old self, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”  In other words, since we are “already dead,” we no longer have to engage in the unending campaign to prove ourselves to anyone.  We now live by the breath of God and the mercy of Jesus Christ.  Stripped of our illusions we are made starkly aware that there is no campaigning necessary to be accepted into God’s good graces, and we no longer need to justify ourselves to anyone else.  “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  If we look at Ash Wednesday rightly we then see that the reality of our mortality actually sets us free.  How liberating it is to be released from the endless campaign of self-justification!

For me, I admit putting this freedom into practice has been a life-long effort.  Even Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Movement is said to have frequently reminded himself while patting his head, “Remember that you are baptized!”  Again, a reminder that our old self is dead, and we now live in Christ, free of ego needs and restrictions - liberated to be our true selves, made in God’s image, unencumbered by our need to prove ourselves to anyone.  In Christ Jesus we are already justified.  We have already been “elected,” as it were.  This is freedom, indeed!

This is all a bit heady for my young mentee to grasp, but someday I hope he can live into the freedom of dying, to be raised with Christ into a new life, a new creation, released from the need to be anyone other than who God has made him to be.  May it be so for you.