Happy Ash Wednesday?

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

I like to think of myself as a happy person.

I like to be happy. Being happy makes me feel good and I would guess, my happiness could rub off on others if they themselves are not having a happy day.

I love to sing Happy Birthday to family and friends on their birthday. It is not uncommon for me to leave an obnoxious voicemail for family and friends on their birthday. I love to share the happiness of the day with memes and GIFS on social media.

When Christmas comes to town I prefer to say “Happy Christmas” over “Merry Christmas.” This decision is twofold. First, saying “Happy Christmas” is something our friends on the other side of the pond do and well, it makes me feel more cultured. Second, I love the movie Love Actually and since it takes place in London during Christmas, saying “Happy Christmas” makes me feel as though I am in the movie.

Today we mark the beginning of Ash Wednesday by marking ourselves. More specifically, Christians around the world today are gathered together to worship - some in sanctuaries and chapels, others in coffee shops, parks, and subway stations. I am not here to re-litigate “ashes to go” or “drive-thru ashes.” This morning my social media feed began to fill, as I knew it would, with selfies of folks (mostly clergy) with well-placed and manicured crosses on their foreheads.

I’ll just leave this here - “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” - Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 6:1 (NRSV)

Captioned with many of the cross-selfies was this - “Happy Ash Wednesday.”

Happy Ash Wednesday? Really?

I am a happy person. I really am. I enjoy the song Happy by Pharrell Williams. But happy, on Ash Wednesday? Well, those words seem to go together like lamb and tuna fish.

My friend Brian put it this: “Today is a day to wake up to our lives. To remember that our days are numbered, and each one is a gift. Be alive today! For from dust you came, and to dust you shall return.”

To put it slightly more simplistic - Today is a day when we wake up, realize we will die one day, and that today, this day we are living right now is a gift.

Fleming Rutledge argues that Ash Wednesday, of all the days in the church calendar, should remain a private day. This is a day of withdrawal both the church corporately she argues, and I would add the Christians individually. Withdrawn reflection is different from happily boasting of ones piety.

For the time has come for judgement to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? - 1 Peter 4.17 (NRSV)

This is the day when the church stands first to confess our (individually and corporately) sins, submitting ourselves before the divine to await our judgment.

There are things we have done and left undone as communities for which we must offer repentance. Ash Wednesday offers the church gathered (however small a gathering it is) the opportunity to see how the church can really stand as a witness for the community. However small a gathering, the congregation is taking the sins of the community upon themselves. This is no easy task nor should it be undertaken flippantly.

We begin the season of Lent today, with repentance. The worship I will participate in today does not end with a happy charge or benediction. We will end with a confession:

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit.

We begin the season of Lent not with the happiness of Easter morning but with repentance. Repentance does not have to be drudge we pull ourselves through. Repentance can be a time for celebration, for that in Christ’s faithfulness we are able to repent. We are able to turn back to God, and away from our sin not because of anything we have done or will do, but instead because of Christ's.

My podcasting partner and all-around happy buddy Taylor put it this way, “All of our navel-gazing during Lent is supposed to lead us to the cross, to the fact that Christ is on it and we are not, and if we can’t be happy about that then I don’t know what we’re doing.”

Live happy in that. Be happy that in Christ we have been reconciled with God and can now turn, repent - with or without ashes on our heads.

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