Ashes - the Hermit

The air is very bright – the sun is like a golden trumpet blast. The Teacher rides into the cheering voices, into the blazing light, into the jaws of death, and we know that victory is always only apparent, that Incarnation and Death are one and the same, that the way In is the way Out.

We celebrate Incarnation, we celebrate the coming of the Teacher, and throw palm leaves before his feet to honour him. We face him and see the Light. He faces us and sees crucifixion over our shoulders. Always the Bridegroom arrives, and gives his flesh like bread so that we may live. This is as old as humanity.

Do we dissolve before his eyes like ghosts, our cheers as thin and eerie as the cries of bats as he rides to his death? Shall we follow him? And if we do, will he turn out another Pied Piper of Hamelin, to lead us down into the dark? Yes, no doubt, but he won’t stop there, he’ll lead us through, and out the other side.

The joy of Palm Sunday leads to Good Friday. Good Friday leads to Easter Sunday, and that leads back to Ash Wednesday.

For centuries people have taken the palm leaves they brought home on Palm Sunday and kept them until this day, when they burn them and draw a cross on their foreheads with the ashes. The coin has two sides, Life and Death. As the old song reminds us “You can’t have one, You can’t have none, You can’t have one without the other.”