Among the Ashes
March 20, 2025 | Jim Angehr
Our very own Scott Flovin––one of the elders at Liberti Collingswood––will be preaching to us this Sunday from the story of Job. Job 2:11-13, to be exact, in which Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to the one that has been stricken by God. It’s a striking chapter.
On my mind this week have been a couple of verses that appear soon before brother Scott’s sermon text, namely Job 2:7-8: “So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.” Job, among the ashes. A place of despondency, humiliation, and emptiness.
Ever thought felt that way? Of course we have, which is why the book of Job has been cherished around the world for thousands of years. Job sees us!
At different points in many of our lives, we’ve ourselves sat among the ashes. In this fallen world, that’s simply sometimes where we’ll end up. The question, though, is what we do once we find ourselves there.
It’s been on my mind as I think about this cultural moment that we’re not particularly good at sitting in the ashes. Not that we ever were, nor at one level should we ever be. At the same time, I’ll observe that it seems like we’re becoming increasingly not ok about being not ok, if that makes any sense. We don’t necessarily know what to do with sadness, and even though we’re awash in an ocean of wellness culture, our toolbox for working through grief remains stubbornly small.
If you’re in the ashes right now, I pray that you don’t remain there. Would the Lord bring you out of whatever pit, dip, or pothole you find yourself in. On the other hand, if it seems like the ashes won’t be dusting themselves off of you anytime soon, I would invite you to grow in the Christian grace of patient waiting. Until Jesus returns and makes all things new, there will be seasons of ash in your life, and as difficult as those seasons are, they won’t be forever. Ash has an end in new life.
Not only that, but as we believe in him, we’re able by the Holy Spirit to call out for, and experience, the presence of the risen Christ with us among the ashes. If Job was a man of ash, Jesus is our man of sorrows who was burnt down to embers on the cross but rose again in victory over death itself. In the midst of our sorrow, the promise of life persists.
So, don’t freak out if you’re sad, and if your life isn’t what you want it to be. It’s ok not to be ok if we can yet rest in Jesus. God is still in control, and Jesus has you.
Lent isn’t the Christian season most known for fun. It’s a serious season, but then again, life gets deadly serious sometimes. Nevertheless, because resurrection, that doesn’t mean that it’s darkness, and ash, all the way down.