By Ash and Water and Spirit

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.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

   and sinners will return to you.

Psalm 51:10-13 

Ash Wednesday is a time of confession, and I think confession must start with the clergy. I am a high-functioning introvert, which means that Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite worship services. The introvert in me loves that I now have an excuse to be silent and quiet and reflective. I don’t have to explain why I’m in my head and starting new habits. Ash Wednesday a day of meditation, fasting, prayer, and deep breaths. The high-functioning aspect, on the other hand, loves the ashes, the act of coming forward, the tangible expression of lament and repentance that others can see. There’s a beautiful tension between the “go into your closet and pray in secret” as Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel vs. the obvious and visible ashes that mark our faith.

Ash Wednesday invites us to recognize our mortality, not in a fatalistic way, but an honest awareness that we aren’t here forever. Moments matter. We shouldn’t be listening for the clock that holds the secret to our span of life, but the regular heartbeat of the gift it is to be alive. Sometimes we take this gift for granted. Sometimes our pride, anxiety, and belief that there isn’t enough for everyone drives our decisions and mutes our emotions, leading us to turn away and plug our ears thinking that God’s love is too loud or not meant for us. People are messy, so messy that we even when we recognize the gift of God’s grace we might think it’s only for us, and can’t possibly be for those whose story is different. Like the laborers in the field when everyone was paid the same or Jonah who’s just waiting for God to set off the fireworks of Ninevah or the older brother who can’t stomach the prodigal’s return.

Ashes save us from the sin of thinking that my story, my church, my denomination, my nationality, my race is the only thing worthy of God’s attention…or that I don’t need any attention from God at all, and all of those other people need saving. Sitting in the ashes centers us, but we don’t wallow in them.

Ash Wednesday invites us into the tension of our mortality and our place in the Kingdom of God—clay jars that speak of the eternal, recognizing our finitude with the hope of resurrection, wearing the ashes of lament while beseeching God’s mercy to imbibe us with righteousness so that joy will once again be a friend.

But ashes are not our final destination. The dust that marks our foreheads tonight is not meant to linger forever, just as lament is not meant to be our only song. If ashes remind us of our need, water reminds us of God’s answer. The journey of Lent does not end in the wilderness; it moves toward the waters of life, toward resurrection, toward the joy of redemption. Tonight, we receive the ashes as a sign of our confession, but soon we will be invited to remember our baptism—the moment we were claimed by grace, marked as God’s own, washed clean and sent forth. This movement from ashes to water is not just ritual; it is the story of the Gospel itself. We begin in brokenness, but we are not abandoned there. We confess, but we are not condemned. We return to dust, but in Christ, we rise again.

To wash the ashes from our foreheads is not to dismiss our need for repentance but to step into the truth that we are not defined by our sin. We are defined by the mercy of the One who calls us beloved. Some of us may not be ready to let go of the ashes just yet—we may need to sit with them a little longer, to wrestle with our own longing for renewal. That’s okay. God is patient, and grace is not in a hurry. Whether we wash the ashes tonight or bear them into the world a little longer, the water of baptism remains. It is always flowing, always ready to cleanse, always ready to remind us who and whose we are.

And so, as a high-functioning introvert, I find myself drawn to this night not just because it gives me permission to be quiet, but because it speaks to the paradox I carry every day—the pull between deep, personal reflection and the call to step forward, to be seen, to engage in something bigger than myself. Ash Wednesday gives us space to sit in silence, to reckon with our own limitations, to name the broken places that We’d rather ignore. But it also pushes us out of ourselves and into the physical act of repentance, of moving forward to receive the ashes, of standing alongside others who bear the same mark. It reminds us that faith is never just internal. It is something we wear, something we live, something that binds us to one another.

Create in me a clean heart, o God. That language of purity, at least in the book of Exodus, refers to the purity of gold. Not only is the gold that God’s people offer meant to be presented without blemish, but, like gold, we are precious and also malleable in order to the shaped and molded into who God is calling us to be, the kind of precious vessel that can hold a new and right spirit.

Lent may begin in the dust, but it leads us to the cross. And beyond the cross, to an empty tomb. This is why we journey. This is why we dare to confess, to lament, to repent—because we know that the story doesn’t end in sorrow. It ends in joy. The joy of resurrection. The joy of restoration. The joy of knowing that when we rise from these ashes, we do not rise alone. We rise with Christ, and in Christ, all things—even dust—are made new.

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