Ash Ash Baby (Back to the Future)

“The practice of Ash Wednesday dates back to the 11th Century,” says Lauren F. Winner, a priest and assistant professor at Duke Divinity School. “You see that in the book Daniel in the ninth chapter there’s a line about associating fasting with ashes, so ashes are associated with penance, which is the dominant theme of Lent.” Growing up Catholic, this was ritual where we would go to church, and have a priest put a cross with ash, made from palm leaves from the previous Palm Sunday on our foreheads as a sign of us beginning a forty day fast, mirroring Jesus. We could not eat meat on Fridays, give up one thing for the whole forty days, but to me it was more about tradition, than an actual penance or renewal.

 “I mentioned how much I love the movie “Back to the Future.” Not only does it have many great quotes like, “There’s that word heavy again, is there something wrong with the Earths gravitational pull in Nineteen Eighty Five?” “I'm sure in Nineteen Eight Five plutonium is in every corner drug store, but in Nineteen Fifty Five, it’s a little hard to come by! I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here” Who's President of the United States in Nineteen Eighty Five? Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan. Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan! The actor? Ha! Then who is Vice President? Jerry Lewis? “The mom gets on Marty for wanting to go camping with his girlfriend, and the daughter for drinking, as she states, "how she was a good girl and didn’t do any of those things when she was growing up." When Marty goes back in time, he finds that his mom not only drink, but smoked, and snuck out with her friends. When Marty tells her in horror, you smoke too; the mom responds with, “You’re sounding like my mother!”

 

Paul in his First letter to Timothy wrote in chapter one, beginning in verse Twelve, 

 

“I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service, THOUGH FORMERLY I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I RECEIVED MERCY because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to SAVE SINNER'S, of whom I am the foremost.” (ESV) (Emphasis Added)

 

We all have a past, and I am the first to say like Paul that I am a sinner. I have committed every sin that if people knew, would probably stop reading my writings, calling me a hypocrite. I have been an adulterer, a drunk, gotten high, been a bad husband, father, son, friend and have let Jesus down so many times, I lost count. I, unlike Marty’s mom in the movie, don’t hide the fact of who I am because God died for me, and it doesn’t give me a license to continue sinning like Paul says in Romans Six,

 

“What shall we say then? Are we to CONTINUE IN SIN THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND? BY NO MEANS! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would NO LONGER BE ENSLAVED TO SIN. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” (ESV) (Emphasis Added)

 

The Bible holds back no punches, and it is candid of the past of all those whom God used. Abraham was a liar, Sarah doubted, Moses was a murder, Aaron an idol worshipper, Noah a drunk, David an adulterer and a murderer, Jeremiah a complainer and suicidal, Jonah ran from God, and Peter denied Him. Paul was also a murderer and a persecutor of God’s church, and still used all of them to change the world. I am not proud of who I was, and at times I struggle and fail God still, but I know that I hold onto what Paul says in Second Corinthians Five, 

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”  (ESV)

 

The idea of a cross on my forehead never made sense to me, because I knew whom I was, and whom my family was, and how this tradition was never taken seriously. I have written previously, we are not Jesus and our sacrifices should not be an outward appearance, but a broken and a contrite heart. The passage from Daniel nine, which is mentioned as the reason for starting this practice, is Daniel praying to God for the people of Israel who were in exile. It says,  

 

“Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.” (ESV) (Emphasis Added)

 

The idea of sackcloth and ashes was a way of showing regret, or sorrow for having done something wrong, and Daniel was in fervent prayer. We are no longer a part of the Old covenant and or we are not to hold to the traditions of man-made religions. As I mentioned, God, even in the Old Testament was not concerned with an outward appearance, but with a broken and contrite spirit. Jesus Himself says in Matthew Fifteen six b, through nine, quoting Isaiah Twenty Nine Thirteen,

 

“So for the SAKE OF YOUR TRADITION you have made VOID THE WORD OF GOD. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (ESV) (Emphasis Added)

 

We are to take up our cross daily and not just do things for show, but we are to let the light of Jesus shine on our faces and our actions, for Him to get the glory and not us. He has made me white as snow, and I can share the word in truth, knowing that through my failures and experiences, I can share the grace of Christ Not by judging and thumping people, or lying of who I was, but in His truth, knowing God knows everything about me anyways! So what about you, what is your past, and where have you been? It’s okay God loves you anyways, and wants to pick you up, and cleanse your soul, and give you peace like a river!” It is like an old worship song I sing, called “He Knows My Name.” The chorus says, “He knows my name, He knows my every thought (and He loves me, He sees ear tear that falls, and hears me when I call.” Won’t you let go of your past, repent and let your future be new in Jesus Christ and Him alone?” Jose Barajas