As we draw closer to Easter, I still can’t get Ash Wednesday out of my head. Well, not Ash Wednesday per se, but a comment that someone made to me as we were finishing up our annual offering ashes to passersby on the street.
For the ninth year, I stood on the south end of Daley Plaza in the heart of downtown Chicago and asked people if they would like ashes for Ash Wednesday. I was there from 8 am to 9 am and it was (as it often is) a chilly morning so once 9 am came around, I was eager to find a warm location. I said good-bye to my ashing partners and as I bent down to pick up my sign, a man walked by me and said, “What are you protesting?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. “What?” was my pithy reply.
“What are you protesting?” He pointed. “The sign. What are you protesting?”
I finally figured out what he was asking and chuckled. Normally, when you see someone carrying a sign in downtown Chicago, they are protesting something or someone.
“Oh, nothing. It’s for Ash Wednesday,” I said.
He looked at me quizzically (I’m not sure he knew what Ash Wednesday was), shrugged his shoulders, and continued walking.
Since that day, however, I can’t get his question out of my mind because there is real truth in his question and I realize that there are things that we protest in Lent and there are certainly things we will protest this Sunday.
We protest death on Easter. Not that we deny death or see it as an enemy, but we protest death in several ways. I believe it’s appropriate to protest a society that is obsessed with guns. I believe it’s appropriate to protest the death penalty. I believe it’s appropriate to protest policies that bring about unjust deaths of immigrants.
Protesting death aligns with the strong words in 1 Corinthians 15: “Death has been swallowed up by a victory. Where is your victory, Death? Where is your sting, Death? ( Death’s sting is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.) Thanks be to God, who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
We protest that death is the final victor. The resurrection is evidence of that. It’s a statement worth putting on a sign and carrying around, letting the world know this good and life-changing news.