Ashes of Death - Water of Life

Today is Ash Wednesday.

Ashes and water combined to form a sacred part of ancient Israel’s purity code.

Not just any water – it had to be fresh spring-water, literally living water. And not just ashes from any old fire, but the ashes of a special sacrifice.

The animal had to be a red heifer, free of blemishes, one that had never calved and been put under the yoke! . . .

It was slaughtered and burned with great ceremony with three red ‘seasonings’, cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool, burned along with the carcass to make the ashes perfectly. Then the ashes had to be ceremoniously carried to a sacred place and stored there until mixed with the spring-water to make the holy ‘purification water’.

Israel had a strong taboo against touching dead bodies – which did two good things. It made for good hygiene and it also increased reverence for life.

Numbers 19 spells out all the regulations governing this taboo. Anyone touching a dead body was ritually unclean for a week and had to be purified with the sacred ash/spring-water, sprinkled on them with hyssop, a spicy grass, in order to resume life in the community. Skipping the ritual was forbidden. Israel reverenced both life and purity that highly.

To me this curious ash/water ritual symbolizes the inter-twining of life and death. The ashes speak of death with a lot of redness – think blood – in its origins. Blood is the fluid of life. The ashes of death are mixed with living spring water – the text is clear, it must be ‘living’ water. The Hebrew word is chai – as in L’chaim – to life! Buried deep in this ritual is a conviction that natural life is precious, death is a travesty, purity is easily lost but that God has provided a way back.

An early Christian writer takes it a step further, reflecting on this ceremony in light of the sacrifice of Jesus.
“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
Hebrews 9:13-14

Today on Ash Wednesday, Christians remember our mortality and the spiritual contamination of our sin. We are marked with ashes in honesty and humility. We receive these ashes in the shape of a cross as reminder that a sacrifice has been made on our behalf – and that Christ’s blood purifies us forever. Living water flows into our hearts by God’s Holy Spirit.

And that deserves a heart-felt Hallelujah!

Your blogger and his wife wish you God's blessing on this Ash Wednesday!