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Ash Wednesday, this liminal place of death and life, is a day of strange contrasts. When I smudge ash and oil onto the skin of those who come forward, I mark them with a sign of death to assure them that they will live. The cross, that ancient means of execution, is a means of hope, of life, for those who come.

What does it mean, this ash and oil applied to skin? Child of God, child of God, I remind myself as I look in the mirror at my own cross of ashes. It means that we have been marked with the love of God in Jesus Christ, the hope of life forever, the mystery of death that transforms into life. It is smudgy and messy, the consistency is only ever right on paper. In my actual life, something is always askew, yearning for wholeness.

I ask God to take the ash and oil of my life and smooth it into something smudgy and life-giving. I kneel at the altar rail, chin tilted up, to receive my own reminder. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Death shall transform into life.

This message is excerpted from “Ash and oil” by Jordan Miller-Stubbendick in the January/February 2018 Gather magazine. Today is Ash Wednesday. Today we commemorate Martin Luther, renewer of the church, 1546.