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By: Pastor Berg

“Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” We’ve all played that game haven’t we? It’s a silly game that kids love to play mostly because you get to spin and then fall down. But isn’t it interesting that even though every single one of us has probably played the game, we’ve got no idea what it means. One minute we’re dancing around, picking posies, the next we fall down in ashes? It doesn’t really follow, does it? When you stop to think about it, we all fall down giggling and laughing, but there’s really nothing funny about ashes, is there? Not to be morbid, but this really sounds like a rhyme about life and death. Doesn’t it ring of Jesus’ words about flowers and grass: “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire…” (Matthew 6:30).

This silly little children’s rhyme is a rather accurate picture of our lives because of sin. One minute, we’re alive, enjoying all this world has to offer; the next, we’re knocking on death’s door. Death will overtake us all one day, as a consequence of our sins. We know that our sins will eventually lead to the grave—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—as the words spoken at a
graveside service declare. These are not things that we like to think about, but the reality is that one day, because of sin, our bodies will be nothing but ashes.

People throughout the world’s history have put ashes on their heads or sat in ashes as a sign of sorrow and repentance. Christians will have ashes put on their foreheads on the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, as a reminder of their sins and where they lead them. Ashes are a rich symbol, a powerful picture of humiliation and repentance. They are a tangible reminder that the wages of sin is death, that we can’t help ourselves, and that we need someone to save us.

When the prophet Jonah called the people of Nineveh to repentance, the King of Nineveh put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. He said, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:9). Who knows? We know. We know what God has promised first to Adam and Eve and all of their descendants. The seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s dead. God’s anger will be satisfied. And starting February 14th, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, we get to see God’s plan in action to redirect his anger from us and instead aim it at his Son. We get to see God’s love in action as he sends Jesus to rescue us who return to dust and ashes at the end of our lives. During the season of Lent, as we see God’s love in action, we prepare our hearts for Easter. We prepare our hearts through contrition and repentance over our own sins. We look again at the wondrous love that brought Jesus to this world to live and die for us. But that is not the end of the story! While it’s still true, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” we also rise again because “He is risen, just as he said” (Matthew 28:6). May God bless us as we follow our Savior this Lenten season!