One of my friends called my attention to a letter written by
Presbyterian colleague who serves as a military chaplain.(1) She is
Major Barbara Sherer, United States Army Chaplain Corps. Major
Sherer's letter came from Kuwait, where she was stationed, serving
our troops. She tells of a fire that raced through a complex of
five large tents that served as the camp's central dining
facility, and also the place where she and the other chaplains
held religious services. Miraculously, the fire broke out at just
the right time. It was Sunday morning, but breakfast was over.
The Protestant worship service had ended and the Catholic service
had not yet begun. A little earlier or a little later, and the
results could have been tragic. Those tents would have been
packed with soldiers. The few service people who were under the
canvas were able to get out in the nick of time.
But there's more to the story. The fire occurred on the
Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Chaplain Sherer happened to be
faced, at the time, with a dilemma. She was preparing to hold an
Ash Wednesday service in a few days, but she had no ashes.
Traditionally, the ashes for Ash Wednesday come from burned palm
fronds, left over from the previous year's Palm Sunday; but in all
the hectic preparations for her unit's deployment to the middle
east, Barbara had not thought ahead about where she was going to
get ashes.
The mess-tent fire presented her with an opportunity. "What
could be more appropriate?" she thought to herself. She liked the
symbolism: out of terror and destruction comes something
worthwhile. Little did she know how appropriate the symbol would
prove to be.
Let Barbara tell the rest of the story in her own words:
"The site was under guard, so I asked an MP to escort me to
the firefighters who were working there. Things had calmed down,
and they were just watching to make sure there were no flare-ups.
"I explained to the officer in charge what I wanted. He
agreed it was a very appropriate request. I handed a cup to one
of the firefighters, who walked to the rubble, scooped up some
ash, and returned to me.
"'Is this enough?' he asked.
"'Perfect,' I replied. I placed the cup in a Zip-Loc bag and
headed to my tent. Two days later I decided to open the bag and
see if I needed to crunch up the ashes into smaller pieces. I was
digging around in the cup with a plastic knife when I noticed the
edge of something metallic. I reached in, and pulled out a cross.
A flat, metal cross. It had some dark smudges on it from the
fire, but it was otherwise undamaged. I could still read the
etching on it: 'Jesus is Lord.'
"I can't even fathom the odds of picking the exact site of
that cross out of the acreage destroyed by the fire. It doesn't
matter. The message to me is clear: God walks with us through the
terrible firestorms of our lives, and we are lifted unharmed out
of the ashes. We may be marked in some way, like the cross of ash
placed on our foreheads during Ash Wednesday. However, that mark
is a symbol of God's love and protection.
"I wear that cross now on my dogtags. No matter where the
Army may send me, or what God may ask of me, I will cherish this
special reminder that God will never leave us alone to face the
tragedies in our lives. With God's help, we will always rise out
of the ashes."(2)
So what good comes out of the ashes of Ash Wednesday? You
realize, of course, we're out of step with the larger culture, as
we gather here to do what we're about to do. Our culture is
becoming less comfortable all the time with the whole subject of
sin. Our culture would rather not speak of the need for
repentance. Our culture would just as soon let Ash Wednesday slip
by - just as it lets Good Friday slip by. It is hard for the
culture to see what good can possibly come out of Ash Wednesday.
Chaplain Sherer's story can give us a hint, though. When she
picked that shining, silver cross from out of the inky black ashes
of the mess-tent fire, she discovered a small symbol of how, in
Jesus Christ, hope arises even out of the ashes of suffering and
sin. We do not observe Lent in order to grovel in the realization
of how bad we are; we observe Lent because we know that, if we
faithfully and obediently make that journey of repentance, on the
other side is the glory of Easter.
The prophet Isaiah understands something of the true meaning
of repentance. Writing many centuries before Jesus, he speaks of
the sort of fasting that honors God. As Eugene Peterson renders
the prophet's words, in his Bible paraphrase, The Message:
"Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a
day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that
fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like? This is
the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of
injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested
in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting
clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to
your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once. Your
righteousness will pave your way. The glory of God will
secure your passage."
The ultimate purpose of our journey through Lent - from Ash
Wednesday to Good Friday - is not to drag ourselves down. It is,
rather, to allow God to raise us up. By God's grace, out of the
ashes comes hope.
Amen!
1. My friend is Carlos Wilton, pastor of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant, NJ. Much of this sermon comes from an Ash Wednesday meditation of his entitled "Out of the Ashes" delivered 2/25/04
2. Published on Beliefnet.com, 3/29/03
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