2/18/2026_Ash Wednesday_All Shall Be Well

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Ash Wednesday does not pretend that we are stronger than we are.
It does not rush us past grief, regret, or weariness.
It tells the truth:
About our fragility.
About how easily we break.
About how quickly life can change.
About how much we carry that no one else sees.

And God says, through all of it:
You are dust—
and you are deeply loved.

Julian of Norwich lived in the fourteenth century, in a world marked by plague, violence, and uncertainty.
She knew death.
She knew fear.
She knew what it meant to live close to the edge.

And yet, in the middle of that darkness, she received visions of God’s love that led her to say something astonishing:

“Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

The sentence is kind of strange.

“Sin is behovely.”
Necessary.
Inevitable.
Human.

Julian was not excusing wrongdoing.
She was telling the truth about us.

We are fragile.
We fail.
We hurt each other.
We fall short.
We lose our way.

We are dust.

And yet—
“All shall be well.”

Why? Because Julian understood sin not as something God wants to punish,
but as something God longs to heal.

That is what Isaiah is preaching.

God says,
“This is the fast I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to share your bread,
to shelter the homeless,
to clothe the naked.”

In other words:
True repentance heals what is broken.

It heals relationships.
It heals communities.
It heals systems.
It heals hearts.

And Jesus echoes this.

When you pray, don’t perform.
When you give, don’t show off.
When you fast, don’t pretend.

Go into the quiet.
Go into the truth.
Go into the place where God can meet you honestly.

Because God is not interested in religious performance.
God is interested in restoration.

Ash Wednesday and the lenten season before us are not about making us feel small.
They are invitations to be honest.

Honest about where we are wounded.
Honest about where we have wounded others.
Honest about where we have grown tired.
Honest about where we have stopped hoping.

We come with ashes because we cannot heal ourselves.

And we come because God has not given up on us.

Julian once imagined God speaking to her and saying:
“I am the ground of your praying.
I am the one who makes you desire it.”

Even our turning back to God—begins with God.

Even our repentance is already grace.

In a few moments, you will receive ashes in the shape of a cross.

Not a circle.
Not a symbol of perfection.

A cross.

A sign that God meets us in suffering.
In weakness.
In dust.

A sign that healing comes through love that does not abandon us.

When those ashes touch your skin, they are not saying:
“You are a failure.”

They are saying:
“You are mortal.”
“You are beloved.”
“You are still being made new.”

Julian believed that God never looks at us with disgust.
Only with compassion.

She said God sees our brokenness
the way a parent sees an injured child:
not with anger,
but with fierce tenderness.

And so tonight,
we begin Lent not in shame,
but in hope.

We begin as dust—
that God is determined to raise into light.

We begin wounded—
in the hands of our Great Physician.

We begin unfinished—
trusting the One who says:

“All shall be well.”

May it be so. Amen.