Ash Weds 2025

Let's be the Lord who forgiveness all of our sin.

God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith, to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word, Jesus Christ your Son, with who you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God forever and ever.

Amen.

Please kneel, as is your piety, as we say the great litany.

We will say it responsibly.

Holy God, Creator of heaven and earth, holy and mighty Redeemer of the world, mercy God, holy immortal one, sanctifier of the faithful, holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God, from all evil and mischief, from pride, vanity, and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred, and malice, and from all evil intent.

From sloth, worldliness and love of money, from hardness of heart and contempt for your word and your laws.

From sins of body and mind, from the seeds of the world, flesh and the devil, from anger and deliver us, from famine and disaster, from violence, murder, and dying unprepared.

In all times of sorrow, in all times of joy, in the hour of our death, and at the day of judgment.

By the mystery of your holy incarnation, by your birth, childhood and obedience, by your baptism, fasting and temptation, Savior and deliver us, by your ministry in word and work, by your mighty acts of power, by the preaching of your reign.

Savior and deliver us, by your agony in trial, by your cross and passion, by your precious death and burial.

Savior and deliver us.

By your mighty resurrection, by your glorious ascension, and by your sending of this Holy Spirit.

Hear our prayers, O Christ our God.

Hear us over us.

Govern and direct your holy church.

Fill it with love and truth, and grant it that unity which is your will.

Give us boldness to preach the gospel in all the world and to make disciples of all the nations.

Enlighten your bishops, priests, and deacons with knowledge and understanding, that by their teaching and their lives they may proclaim your word.

Give your people grace to witness to your word and bring forth the fruit of your spirit.

Bring into the way of truth all who have erred and are deceived.

Strengthen those who stand, comfort and help the faint-hearted, raise up the fallen, and finally beat down Satan under our feet.

Guide the leaders of the nations into the ways of peace and justice.

Give your wisdom and strength to Donald, the President of the United States, Greg, the governor of this state, and Phil, the mayor of this city, that in all things they may do your will for your glory and the common good.

Give to the Congress of the United States, the members of the President's Cabinet, those who serve in our state legislature, and all others of authority the grace to walk always in the ways of truth.

Bless the justices of the Supreme Court and all those who administer the law, that they may act with integrity and do justice for all your people.

Give us the will to use the resources of the earth to your glory and for the good of all.

Blessed keep all your people.

Comfort and liberate the lonely, the bereaved, and the oppressed.

Keep in safety those who travel and all who are in peril.

Heal the sick in body, mind, or spirit, and provide for the homeless, the hungry, and the destitute.

Guard and protect all children who are in danger.

Shower your compassion on prisoners, hostages, and refugees, and all who are in trouble.

Hear us.

Hear us to us.

Hear us as we remember those who have died, and grant us with them a share in your eternal glory.

Hear us in Christ.

Give us true repentance.

Forgive us our sins of negligence and ignorance and our deliberate sins.

And grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to your word.

Laban overtook Jacob, and now Jacob had pitched his hand in the hill country, and Laban with his hand over, came to the hill country of Gilead.

And Laban said to Jacob, What have you done?

You have robbed my heart and herded off my daughters like captives of the sword.

Why did you seek to run away and rob me and not tell me?

I would have sent you away with celebration and sea, with drawing and strawing.

And then Laban said to Jacob, these daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, but these flocks are my flocks, and all that you see, it is on.

Now what can I do today about these my daughters, or about their children who may have burnt?

And let it be a witness between me and you.

Certainly it cannot redeem a person, or give it to God as a price.

For the redemption price of a soul is costly.

Shall one live eternally and ever see the death?

For when one sees the wise they die, but the wishes, so well.

Their graves are their homes for all time, their dwelling places from generation to generation, though they put their name on lands.

Humanity will not recline in grandeur.

Rather, this is the way of the foolish.

Those who are like sheep they are set out for Sheol, but death shall be.

The upright shall rule over them until the morning, and their form shall waste away.

She shall be.

But we hope for what we do not see.

We wait for it with patience.

The word of the Lord.

Now, when Jesus returned from casting demons into a herd of pigs, the crowd of women, children, and men welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.

And here this there came a man whose name was Jairus, a leader of the synagogue.

And he fell at the feet of Jesus and urged him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about twelve years old, and she was dying.

Now as he went, the crowd of women, children, and men nearly crushed Jesus.

And there was a woman who had a vaginal hemorrhage for twelve years.

And though on physicians she had spent her entire life savings, not one was able to cure her.

She came up behind Jesus, touching the fringe of his garment, and immediately her vaginal hemorrhage stopped.

Then Jesus asked, Who touched me?

When all denied it, Peter said, Sir, the crowds surround you and are pressing in.

But Jesus says, Someone touched me, for I discerned that power had gone out from me.

When the women saw that she was not hit, trembling, she came forward and falling down before Jesus, she declared in the presence of all, the women and the men, why she had touched Jesus, and how she was immediately healed.

And Jesus said to her, Daughter, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

While Jesus was speaking, someone came from the synagogue leader's house, saying, Since your daughter is now dead, do not trouble the teacher any longer.

When Jesus heard this, he replied, Fear not, only believe, and she will be saved.

Now when Jesus came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him except Peter, John, and James, and the child's mother and father.

Everyone else was weeping and wailing for her, but Jesus said, Weep not, for she is not dead but sleeping.

And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.

But Jesus took her by the hand, and calling out, he said, Child, get up.

And her breath and spirit returned, and she got up that moment.

Then Jesus directed them to give her something to eat.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be sick.

Good evening, everyone.

So, how many people have been, do a little survey?

You can raise your hand or not.

I'm going to do this often over the next few years.

And so I like participation, but you don't have to.

How many people have been participating in an Ash Wednesday service for over 50 years?

40 years?

Well, raise down 40 years.

30 years?

Twenty years?

10 years?

Five years?

Is anybody coming for the first time?

Pretty cool.

I love it.

And so for you, people who have been coming for a long time, which most people in this room, do you have any idea of what we're doing?

Has anybody ever told you?

I mean, and have you ever wondered, like, this is weird?

Like, this is kind of a weird thing that we do.

We gather together and we say these litany of prayers, and then we we kneel down, and somebody puts ashes on your forehead and says, well, there's a few things they say, but traditionally they say, remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

We have a service in Christianity that basically is saying, hey, don't forget, you're going to die.

And I'll tell you, there's nothing more like powerful for me than when I have a newborn baby or a child and I bring them up as a little child, and I'm looking at this child and I'm saying, hey, the ancestors, the people that have come before us, the faithful Christians have told us that it's really important for us once a year to come together and to remind you that you're going to die.

Now, I think that for some of us, when we read scripture or when we engage religion, we think that primarily what the Bible or some of these other sacred texts are trying to tell us is they're trying to tell us what happened.

They're trying, because we love our history, don't we?

We like our facts, we like our history, like if somebody wrote something down, they must have been telling us what happened.

And I do believe that there's a lot of what really happened in the Bible.

I don't think that's its primary reason for existence, though.

I think the sacred text that we have received is trying to tell us what it means to be a human being.

It's not so much trying to tell us what happened as it's trying to tell us what it means to be a human being, and a human being fully alive.

Like, what does it mean to be fully alive?

And I think this is what a lot of religious texts, I dare say, all of them in some way are trying to pass along to us.

And we go even deeper and we say, we're going to organize our calendar around festivals and seasons as we try to figure out as a community what does it mean to be fully alive?

And the season that we're starting today is called Flint.

And it kicks off with this tradition where they say, hey, remember, you're going to die.

Now, I think that's odd and amazing at the same time.

And so, why is it that the faithful people who have come before us have said this is something that's really important?

Like if you're going to try to do this humany thing, if you're going to try to be in relationship with God, you should do this and you should take it really seriously.

So, what is it?

What's the thing that they're asking us to do?

What's the part of the human experience that we're trying to engage today?

I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about it in the context of our readings.

And I think that the experience that we're trying to get our hands around is desperation.

It's desperation.

Now, that's not the same as despair.

We actually have a celebration.

We have a feast that helps us get in despair.

That's called Good Friday.

We'll get there.

But the difference between desperation and despair is that desperation still has some hope left in it.

And so, as we prepare to get to the despair, the death, the passion, the resurrection, the ancestors, the faithful who have come before us have says maybe we should together engage the reality of human desperation.

And nothing signifies that more than the reality of death.

And so why do we do this?

Well, because I think the world doesn't want us to.

I think it wants to shame us for doing it.

I think we leave here and we say that if you're desperate, then you're a failure of some sort.

You haven't done it right, you haven't accumulated enough power, you haven't accumulated enough success.

But what we say is this actually makes us more alive.

If you look at the reading, there's two pieces in the gospel reading that I think are interesting.

It starts with this synagogue leader named Jairus.

And Jairus, I mean, he clearly wasn't a follower of Jesus.

It says he was a synagogue leader.

And it says that his daughter was basically dead.

And out of desperation, he said, I'll do whatever it takes.

There's this miracle man, Jesus.

I don't care what other people are saying about him, I don't care what my friends are saying about him.

I'm going to go and I'm going to talk to him because why not?

There's nothing left I can do than to reach out to this God.

And so he does.

Maybe some of you have had a sick kid, and you've taken him every place you possibly can.

You said, Well, why not?

I'll take them, I'll throw chicken bones, I'll throw roots, I'll take them to the witch doctor, it doesn't matter.

Because I just want them to get better.

So he goes and he encounters Jesus, and Jesus says, Okay, I'll come to your house.

And along the way, there are crowds pushing in on him.

And this woman, it says, there's a woman who has spent her entire life savings because she has a hemorrhage.

And so if she has a consistent bleed, it makes her unclean.

She is not fit to be a participant in society.

And it says she has spent every dollar that she has on doctors, and nobody can make her well.

And so with boldness and courage, she crawls through the crowds, risking to be stampeded, stepped on, and she reaches out just to touch the tassel that is on Jesus.

She just wants to touch him.

And her fingers glance across the tassel, and power leaves Jesus.

It says, And she is healed.

And she is healed.

What's fascinating and kind of a neat little insider is at that time Jesus was probably wearing something that probably looked a little bit like this, but it had a whole bunch of tassels on it.

See, the Jewish tradition says, Mike's he's got great props.

They would wear these prayer shawls over their head, right?

And they would have shirts with tassels and such on them.

And each one of these tassels represented one of the 613 precepts in the law, the discipline that ordered the chaos of their life.

And so they had these precepts of the law that they needed to follow.

And one of the precepts, I think, says, do not be unclean by having hemorrhaging, bleeding.

If you touch blood, if you have that, you are going to be made unclean.

And wouldn't it be interesting if the exact tassel that she touched was that one?

I think it probably was.

And I think that's why we engage death today.

Because despite what all of the tech bros and sisters and people are telling you we're not going to be uploading our consciousness anytime soon, it's not going to happen, friends.

And if we did, we would probably cease to be human.

So we are going to die.

And the reality of that, the fear of that, often can create desperation within us.

I think it's a high form of that.

Where are you, God?

I'm so desperate.

I feel like I'm terrified of death.

I have no control.

And I think today we're reaching out right now, and we are trying to touch the tassel of Jesus.

We're saying that over Lent we are going to engage our desperation.

We're not going to be afraid of those times and those moments in our life where we believe that the only reality that can bring us healing is God's love revealed in Jesus Christ.

There's nothing else.

I've done everything else that I can.

And can you open yourself up to that?

Can you open yourself up to the possibility that God creates out of the dirt and the dust and the ashes of our desperation?

Because that's the story.

And somehow, if we engage this faithfully over the next 47 days, if we can open ourselves up to that desperate longing for healing that we all are looking for, then I think by the time we get to Easter, we will be transformed.

So I invite you into human desperation.

I invite you into your own desperation.

Because I think we will meet God there.

Thereby the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance in faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditating on God's holy word, and to make a right beginning of repentance that is a mark of our mortal nature.

Let us now kneel before the Lord, our Maker and our Redeemer.

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth.

Grand that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen.

I invite you now, as you are comfortable, to come and kneel at the altar rail to receive the imposition of ashes.