Sermon Ash Wednesday 2026

 Sermon Ash Wednesday 2026

 

Ash Wednesday is a strange day in the church year. We are not celebrating Jesus’ birth, or rejoicing in his resurrection, or hearing a miracle story. We gather to be marked with ashes. A sign of the cross on the forehead. A reminder of mortality.

Dust we are and to dust we shall return. A confession of our need for hope beyond the grave despite our sinfulness. And so the focus is on repentance as did the people in biblical times who would cover themselves in ashes as a sign of repentance.

And yet, beneath all of that, Ash Wednesday is profoundly hopeful.

It is not a day of despair. It is a day of preparation for the season of Lent. For those who wish to receive the imposition of ashes, when the ashes are placed on our foreheads, we hear the ancient words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Repentance is not meant to shame us. It is meant to free us. We spend so much of our lives pretending we are invincible—that we can do everything, fix everything, control everything. Until we experience a diagnosis of our sickness. Until we hear on the news devastation of life through natural disasters, fatal accidents, acts of terror. We carry burdens we never expected we should carry.

 

Ash Wednesday gently interrupts that illusion that we have all the answers. It reminds us: We are finite. We are fragile.

We are human. And God knows this. God has always known this. The ashes are not a verdict. They are an invitation—to stop pretending, to stop performing, to stop hiding from reality. The prophet Joel when announcing Israel’s gloomy future of coming judgment also gives them hope: “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” Lent is not about breaking us beyond repair. It is about and invitation to come to God’s grace. It is about turning away from the things that drain life from us— resentment, fear, pride, distraction, self reliance— and turning toward the One who gives life.

 

Repentance is not punishment. Repentance is restoration. It is the moment the prodigal son realises he can still go home. It is the moment the lost sheep is lifted onto the shepherd’s shoulders. It is the moment we discover that God has been waiting and searching for us all along. The ashes are not placed on us in a random shape. They form a cross. The same symbol we received when the sign of the cross was made on our foreheads at our baptism The symbol of death becomes the sign of life. I love that part of our communion liturgy during Lent. Who on the tree of the cross gave salvation to all that where death began there life might be restored – that he who by a tree once overcame might by a tree be overcome.

 

So death, the mark of our mortality becomes the mark of our salvation through the death of Christ. Ash Wednesday holds these two truths together: We are dust. We are beloved. We are broken,—but we are also redeemed. We are sinners,—but we are also embraced by grace. The cross on our foreheads is a reminder that Jesus meets us exactly where we are. Lent is not a season of self-improvement. It is a season of surrender. A season of reflection It is a time to let go of what is crushing the soul. A time to make space for God. A time to walk with Jesus toward the cross—not in fear, but in trust.

 

Just as Peter, James and John could not stay on the mountaintop – we too must journey through the ashes to the glory. Some people give something up for Lent. Some people take something on – a time of service to others. But the heart of Lent is not the practice itself. The heart of Lent is repentance as we return to God and received the gift of life. When God formed Adam, God bent down into the dust and breathed his own life of breath into the dust.

 

So when we receive ashes today it is not a sign of separation from God. We are being drawn close to the God who loves his Creation who is in his own image. The God who created us from dust and walked among us in dust and rose from a tomb  meets us again today. Not with condemnation. But with compassion. Death is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of our life with God.

 

So Ash Wednesday is a journey from dust to resurrection. From confession to forgiveness. From wandering to homecoming. So as we receive the ashes, may we hear these word’s as God’s promise: Remember that you are dust.

And may this Lent be a season of truth, tenderness, and transformation— a season where we discover again that God’s mercy is deeper than our sin, and God’s love is stronger than death.