13 February 2013

“Making the Sign of the Cross … in ashes”
Ash Wednesday
13 February 2013


The Sign of the Cross.
On any Sunday, here at Nativity or any other Lutheran congregation … look around during certain times of worship, and you’ll see some, sometimes, many, of your fellow worshippers making the Sign of the Cross over themselves.
The Sign of the Cross.
For those who “grew up” in the Lutheran church, whose worship-life experience is not measured in years but by the color of the hymnal … counting backward … cranberry, green, red, some, even “back to the black one” … for those, “Making the Sign of the Cross” is a new concept … foreign, perhaps … maybe labeled as “something only the Catholics do.”
Lutherans in the US recovered The Sign of the Cross with the introduction of the Green Hymnal, otherwise known as the Lutheran Book of Worship, in 1978. In the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness, there appeared this note … called a “rubric,” for it is printed in red:

The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

In the “Cranberry” Hymnal, otherwise known as Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the rubric goes like this:

All may make the sign of the cross, the sign that is marked at baptism, as the presiding minister begins.

Now, I say we “recovered” the Sign of the Cross with good reason. For the committee that put that hymnal together didn’t just make this ritual up out of thin air … nor was it some sort of a sleight-of-hand move to cozy up to Roman Catholics.
It was a recovery of Martin Luther, his words, his actions, for help and strengthening of faith.
A brief search of Luther’s Works on my computer brought up these examples of how Luther valued the Sign of the Cross as a sign and reminder of faith, given, fed, strengthened:

In the morning, when you rise, make the sign of the cross and say, “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

If the devil puts it into your head that you lack the holiness, piety, and worthiness of David and for this reason cannot be sure that God will hear you, make the sign of the cross, and say to yourself: “Let those be pious and worthy who will! I know for a certainty that I am a creature of the same God who made David. And David, regardless of his holiness, has no better or greater God than I have.”

In the evening, when you retire, make the sign of the cross and say, “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

For Luther, Making the Sign of the Cross wasn’t meant to be a superstitious or magical act, like some baseball players do when they get up to bat … no, it was to be a regular part of the life of a Christian … as regular as eating, sleeping, praying, walking, breathing.
And so you’ll see me Make the Sign of the Cross before and after I receive Holy Communion. Others Make the Sign of the Cross on entering the worship space, as they dip their fingers in the baptismal font, or when they hear the name of our Triune God ... “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” ... when they hear the name said in worship.
It is, simply, as the language of the hymnals declare, a reminder of baptism. Specifically, of a certain part of the baptismal service, when the presiding minister Makes the Sign of the Cross on the forehead of the newly baptized … I use the fragrant oil I have received for this purpose … and then, I say, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Christ forever.”
Who among us does not need to hear that joyous word daily?
And so Making the Sign of the Cross is also a reminder of our Place.
A reminder that we are not God.
A reminder that there is One who is … One who came, and lived our life, rejoiced as we rejoice, suffered as we suffer, died as we died … and also rose again, given life so that we may also have life … full, rich, abundant, and without fear … for the time to come and also in the time that is now … so that we may live, fully present in this present, with and for one another, in this world, among the creation God truly loves.

Ah, but then we come to this day, this one specific day in our Christian calendar, this day when we Make the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads in … ashes.
Why ashes?
Well, what do ashes represent?
Certainly, the Bible speaks of wearing ashes on the head as a sign of sorrow, or shame for one’s actions. The Hebrew Scriptures have many references to the wearing of ashes … for mourning and for repentance.
Ashes represent the end of things, what’s left after everything else is destroyed, burned up. Dust and ashes.
Ashes are the remnants of what was, burned down and burned out.
In other words, they help us recall death.
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
So this is the day, the one day, specifically, that we take a long, hard look at our mortality, our finitude. We draw a cross of ash on our forehead to represent this … Making the Sign of the Cross … we are not God … Making the Sign of the Cross in ashes … Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Some of us need little reminder that death is where we are bound. Every day, it’s a little harder to get up in the morning, it takes a little longer to get dressed, to make it down the stairs, to hike to the mailbox to get the mail. Breath is shorter and rests are longer as we do the yard chores or even walk at the grocery store or the mall.
But even to those of us who aren’t put face to face with our mortality every day … Ash Wednesday comes.
A theological “slow down” sign.
A day to take stock, to assess, to think, to pray, to pause, to come before God in quiet and peace and PLACE … our place, our limited finite place, our falling short place, our place full of broken promises and broken relationships, of selfishness and shortcoming, of self-centeredness and ignorance and forgetfulness.
Our Place.
Not God.
But human. Like the insurance commercial says, “we’re only human.”
And Ash Wednesday is our pause-day, our stop-and-take-stock-day, for all that phrase means for us.
We mark it with ashes … yes … but ashes in the Sign of the Cross.
Today we Make the Sign of the Cross in ashes. Yes, we are human. Yes, we fall short of God. Yes, we are not God. But yes, because of Jesus, because of what he did for us in dying on the Cross, because of what he does for us, risen from the Cross and the grave, this is not the end for us.
In ashes.
The Cross.
It is The Way we begin the season of Lent. A time, a season, for us to go slower, to go deeper, to pause and take stock, to remember and repent and renew … renew relationships … with God, and with each other.
Part of that pausing for me this year involves thinking back and looking back on two times in particular when I made the Sign of the Cross over ashes. Last year on Wednesday in Holy Week mom died, and we had her funeral after Easter. Which of course drew back my memory to the time twelve years earlier when we did the same for dad.
There’s a line in the Lutheran burial service which became The Place, for me, in which to rest and reflect, repent and renew, at both those times and places. We scattered dad’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean at Lincoln City, and we buried mom’s in the Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland. But both times, we heard ... and said ... these words … for them, and for us ... as we made the Sign of the Cross over their ashes:

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our brother, our sister, and we commit their bodies to their resting place, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The Lord bless us and keep us.
The Lord's face shine on us with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon us with favor and + give us peace.

The Lord look upon us with favor and + give us peace.
Making the Sign of the Cross … because Christ in his love makes it over us, for peace, for forgiveness, for healing … for life.
Amen.