Ash Wednesday by Bishop Murray Harvey 29th March 2026
The symbol of Ash from Ash Wednesday partly defines our Lenten journey.
It’s from dust and ashes that God created us, and it’s to dust and ashes that our mortal bodies will return.
I’m going to speak about our Gospel reading today from John but before that I just want to mention that the OT for today is Ezekiel 37:1-14 – the valley of dry bones.
In many ways it sets the scene for Lazarus’ lifeless body.
God’s question to Ezekiel is, Can these bones live?
Logic would say, well they can’t live, powdery and lifeless as they were!
We began our Lenten journey by identifying with these dry bones: we allowed ourselves to be marked with ashes to remind us that we too came from this dry dustiness, that without the life that God breathes into us, we too are lifeless.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says something to Martha that he said many times:
I am the resurrection and the life.
The dry bones in many ways represented lost hopes of the people of Israel, just as Lazarus’ lifeless body was, for Martha, beyond human hope.
Maybe we can relate to that in our lives at the moment.
When life’s challenges begin to overwhelm us, our hopes are sometimes called into question.
In our world today there are many darknesses:
We live in the age of rage – there are many angry people and groups out there.
It’s made worse by social media and the general media helping to turn differences into division and polarisation.
Also, this is a time of polycrisis - the simultaneous occurrence of several and interactive crises that together produce a damage greater than the sum of their parts. We have conflicts in Sudan, Ukraine, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Congo.
So there’s much to feel hopeless about.
Yet Jesus’ ministry to Mary and Martha and Lazarus reminds us that he can meet us where we feel most lifeless, when things seem hopeless, and call us to enter our lives anew.
The answer to God’s question to Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, Can these bones live? (Can Lazarus live, can we live?) … is yes, they/we can live, if filled with the hope, life and love of the Spirit of Jesus.
The Spirit breathes life into us.
On this day, as we keep company with Lazarus and hear the voice of Christ calling to us, what will we choose? Lazarus wasn’t just dead, he was bound up. What might we need to let go of, to loose ourselves from, so that we might become unbound, and move with freedom into the life to which Christ calls us?
Christians throughout the ages have called upon God’s spirit to come upon them as they gather together for worship – to come to their dryness, their hopelessness. The ancient Veni Creator Spiritus (or Come Creator Spirit) hymn reminds us of this (a Sarum, or Salisbury melody). It’s words date from the 9th Century. We’ll hear it later in this service.
God breathes new life and hope into us, whatever our situation:
2 Your blessèd unction from above
is comfort, life, and fire of love;
enable with perpetual light
the dullness of our blinded sight;
3 anoint and cheer our mortal face
with the abundance of your grace;