Michael’s sermon is available here.
Picture by Megan Watson on Unsplash
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I led an Ash Wednesday service. And to my surprise, I found it extremely moving.
I say “to my surprise” because my tradition is not one for rituals. In fact, I was formed in church contexts that made a point of not doing things like Ash Wednesday—precisely because they looked too much like a Catholic observance. We worried about outward forms: about the danger that ritual action might substitute for inward faith, or worse, become a kind of spiritual performance.
After all, the Bible itself is sharply critical of hollow religion. The prophets rail against festivals that are not matched by justice or repentance. And Jesus’ own admonition in the Sermon on the Mount warns against public displays of piety—fasting that is meant to be seen, prayer that is meant to be admired. The temptation to hypocrisy is real, and any theology worth its salt must take it seriously.
But it would be a mistake to conclude from this that Scripture dismisses ritual altogether. In both Psalm 51 and Joel 2, what we actually find is something more subtle. God despises religious observance when it is not matched by an inner reality. The real sacrifice, Psalm 51 tells us, is a broken and contrite heart. And yet—and this is the crucial point—once there is such a heart, then the outward sacrifices become acceptable. The Psalm ends not by abolishing sacrifice, but by restoring it: “then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous.”
Similarly, Joel 2:13 commands: “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” But Joel does not stop there. “Sound the trumpet in Zion,” the prophet continues. Call a fast. Gather the people. Public repentance, it turns out, has public forms. In other words, the problem is not the garment-rending. The problem is garment-rending without heart-rending.
Which brings us back to Ash Wednesday. To mark a cross on someone’s forehead with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is undeniably an outward act. It is visible. It is embodied. It risks misunderstanding. It could even become performative.
And yet, precisely because we are embodied creatures, outward acts can train the inward life. Properly understood—accompanied by repentance, not replacing it—habit-forming rituals can nurture and shape our faith. They remind us of what is true when we are prone to forget. They give form to repentance that might otherwise remain vague or merely aspirational.
This, in fact, was part of Martin Luther’s pastoral wisdom. When reform in Wittenberg threatened to become too radical—too eager to cast off all ceremony—Luther returned from the Wartburg and preached a series of sermons to counter this, what are now known as the Invocavit Sermons. Invocavit is a name given to the First Sunday in Lent. His concern was not to defend ritualism for its own sake, but to prevent the Reformation from becoming a rejection of all forms. People, he knew, need practices that shape their loves as well as their beliefs.
Yesterday, as I traced the sign of the cross in ash after ash, I found myself confronted not with the danger of ritual, but with its power—its quiet insistence on truths I would rather avoid. That I am mortal. That I am sinful. That I need grace.
As I touched each familiar forehead, somehow I could see the mortality of the person in front of me. As their pastor I know their anxieties, their sins, and their sorrows. I know their human hopes (like mine) for doing something in the few years we have.
Perhaps the greater danger, in the end, is not that ritual will replace repentance. Perhaps it is that, without such reminders, repentance will never quite take hold at all.
Rev Dr Michael Jensen is the Anglican half of the WADR team.
thewadrproject.com 