However, sticking a short explanation to the end of a sermon not specifically related to Ash Wednesday, lent, fasting, repentance, etc, then telling everyone "okay, go" doesn't really... work.
On Ash Wednesday, each individual is marked with ashes upon their forehead accompanied by the invocation "Woman/Man, from dust you were created, to dust you shall return." This is a pretty dang somber tradition if you ask me. Why are you smudging charcoal on my forehead? I thought we were getting ready for Easter, why does it start with reminding me I am as chaff in the wind?
I recently re-read my "Lent is beginning" blogpost from last year and was reminded of my own adolescent confusion at the ashen forehead crosses. "One year in middle school I ran to the bathroom between walking to school and attending first period so that I could smudge my own cross on my forehead, the charcoal art pencils in my backpack replacing the symbolic ashes. I had no idea what the point was, but wanted to be dedicated enough to be one of those weird kids with the ashes on their foreheads all day. Or at least I wanted people to think I was that dedicated. What was the point in having Pastor smudge ashes on my head at all if the only people that were going to see it were the ones who I already went to church with anyway?" No one gave me any indication that there was something more going on than looking like a weirdo trying to play pre-princess Cinderella, picking my meaningless fast item, and "looking forward" to Wednesday night soup dinners which functioned as a further excuse to escape from my parents.
In Israel, when a time for great fasting or repentance would come on a person, he would tear his clothes and throw ashes on his head, or, as Job, sit in ashes all day long. Doing this was an outward physical sign of the spiritual humility within: in comparison to you, Lord, I am ugly and as humble as those who must sit in the ashes (the crippled, outcast, etc.) I disfigure myself so that your glory is all the brighter. I take from my day the consciousness of my own glory, walking about with my head downcast that you might be known as the marvelous one and not myself.
Now, Jesus teaches that we are now to go about fasting so that our outward appearance does not draw attention to ourselves (many "religious types" during Jesus's time were loudly fasting and disfiguring themselves so as to draw attention to their good religious deeds, effectively doing the opposite of what wearing sackcloth and ashes was meant to do: propping up their pride rather than manifesting deep humility.) Further, because of Christ we are called to recognize ourselves as beautiful and radiant, reflections of God's glory. But on Ash Wednesday we remember the tradition of wearing ashes to display a repentant heart, a heart that recognizes that even in the state of resurrected heir, our enemy seeks our destruction and our flesh runs amok. Even as a reborn creation, a brand new child of the King, clean and white as snow, I sin; we all do it--choose away from God, be it in big stereotypical no-no sins or in misdirected thoughts and spiteful minds. On Ash Wednesday we recognize that we want to be more, want to fully be that child and that resurrected saint, and display our humility in that we cannot accomplish this as ourselves by smearing our foreheads with ashes.
We remember that if it were not for God, we would be no more than dust, and to dust our worldly bodies will return. The great news is that we get to look forward, 40 days (plus Sundays) from now to the triumph of Easter. And in the triumph of the cross, the return to dust has been obliterated. We are freed, forever, from the binding of death and the descent into oblivion.
On Ash Wednesday, we recognize that if it were not for God, we would be literally nothing. But with God, we get to dance and shout and sing and cry; the Joy of the World dwells within us, and we have to mourn no more.
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