Ash Wednesday 2022

Wednesday March 2, 2022

Created by Pastor Drew Tucker

Psalm 51:1–17 (NIV)

1 Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are right in your verdict

and justified when you judge.

5 Surely I was sinful at birth,

sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;

you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;

wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins

and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

so that sinners will turn back to you.

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,

you who are God my Savior,

and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

15 Open my lips, Lord,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart

you, God, will not despise.

Devotion

Mercy. I’ve got to say, I’ve got a complicated relationship with mercy. In a church so shaped by purity culture, mercy is manipulated into weaponized shame. In a society where exceptionalism is the expectation, mercy is twisted into an accommodation for the ordinary. Even Christians, perhaps especially Christians, have put mercy into practice as quid pro quo, which of course is no mercy at all.

Yet, despite all the exploitation, I found myself recommitted to the concept of mercy not through the platitudes of popular Christian authors, nor through the sappy sayings of Hallmark art, but instead through the soaring melodies and thrashing rhythms of pop punk. One band, Motion City Soundtrack, has stuck with me for the past twenty years, with a youthful wit and social commentary that continues to inspire. But most relevant for today, Ash Wednesday, when we plead for mercy for all our faults, is the way that pop punk inhabits a space of both protest and absolution, something akin to jazz, rap, and bluegrass, each of which arose as kinds of protest songs that didn’t forget the wrongs they faced but instead creatively transformed them.

That, it seems to me, is a modern lived experience of divine mercy. To transform the wrongs faced through creative confrontation? Both forgiving and refusing to allow the status quo to remain unchanged. That’s the legacy of this Ash Wednesday, of every Ash Wednesday, as we plea for God to have mercy. What we’re asking for is what Motion City Soundtrack calls “fighting the future” in their breakthrough hit Everything is Alright. To fight the future, in this sense, is to resist what seems inevitable in the worlds we’ve built that lack mercy. To fight the future this way is to embrace transformation of the possible through creative confrontation in the present.

Today, our creative confrontation begins with the ashen smudge of a cross on our foreheads. But it cannot end there. It must not end there; for God does not end in a cross or in ashes.

Prayer

God of Mercy, hear our prayer this day and every day as we walk the journey of Lent. Amen.