Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite services. It seems a bit odd, because it is often a somber service, a service where we are reminded of our mortality. I have stood in different churches and chapels over the past few years, heard those familiar words, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” and received ashes upon my forehead in the shape of the cross. I have cried every time I receive the ashes and hear those words because my favorite part about this somber service is that it is laced with a pure, loving hope. Hope that although this earthly body will not live forever, there is something much more.

A few years ago, I was serving as a seminary intern at a PCUSA church. I provided pastoral care with one of our congregants during her final few weeks at a hospice house. I had the honor of praying with this wonderful, faithful woman and her family every day for two weeks. When she died, I was a wreck. I was new into this whole ministry thing and while I had experienced some death in my life—I had never experienced it from the standpoint of a pastoral caregiver. I was faced with the question, “What is it that you believe about death and God in the midst of death?”

As I spiritually grappled with her death and what I believe about death and after death, a pastor shared with me words that I will never forget, “God looks death straight in the eye and laughs, because it is not the end.” With Christ, we have everlasting life—this is the underlying hope that accompanies us throughout our life journey and it is the hope that roots Ash Wednesday. That same pastor in that same conversation said something else that has remained with me, “in death our baptism is made complete.” Because in life and in death, we belong to God.

May this be the hope that we cling to now and always. Let us lean into today and the rest of the Lenten season, knowing that God is ever present, ever loving, and everlasting.

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.