Sermon preached in Hereford Cathedral on Ash Wednesday 2025

Did you know that in 1653, four years after the execution of Charles I, one Samuel Hering suggested to Parliament that the walls of churches should not be whitewashed but ‘be coullered black to putt men in minde of that blacknesse and darkenesse that is within them.’ Those were indeed dark and dangerous days, and we may think that these days are not so different, as sovereignty and truth alike are contested not only with words but with war.

The Protestants of those days were gutsier about gloom than we are. It’s there in the Prayer Book too. “Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.” “We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us.” We are “miserable offenders.”

My late mother, who was an English teacher and loved the language could not abide the sentiment; and during my lifetime the trope has grown that talk of our innate sin and wickedness is a travesty of our innate goodness, and that turning to God for forgiveness is a juvenile dependency. We can save the world, and will.

That sounds like pure hubris now. Macmillan’s “you never had it so good” evokes a hollow laugh. Wilson’s white heat of the technological revolution has burnt itself out as the downside of its gains has become all too clear. Nuclear energy so cheap it would even be unmetered has given way once more to nuclear threats and anxiety. So it was in the time of Joel:

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
nor will be again after them
in ages to come.

So perhaps we are let off lightly when we come to church on Ash Wednesday and receive a small ashen cross on our foreheads, with a reminder that the Bible tells us not to show it off afterwards. And perhaps I am glad of that, because there are real limits to the amount of darkness we can bear – certainly that I can bear, and are meant to bear.

We need to confront the darkness, because to do anything else is to call the darkness light and deny God, but we name the darkness only to turn away from it, in repentance, in conversion, in choosing to turn to Christ the light.

Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

So back in the Barebones Parliament wiser wisdom prevailed and our churches were painted white not black, and in due course the antagonisms of the Civil War gave way to priests like George Herbert and our own Thomas Traherne who helped their flocks turn to the light and live in the light, seeking both holiness and happiness.

In our service too tonight we name the darkness we dare not deny, both inside us and outside us – substantial prayers of penitence will follow shortly – but when the black ashes are imposed on us they are in the sign of the cross, the sign of Christ in whom all darkness is defeated, and in whose light we dwell; and we receive his presence in the eucharist firmly resolved as our blessing will put it to grow in holiness, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, remembering that Lent is the time of the lengthening of the days – that is what the word actually means; a journey that yes begins with the darkeness but ends in glorious light.