It is an odd word. Outside the church, an imposition is usually negative. The word means "to put upon," but it suggests a more physical act, as if something is pressed or pushed onto your body. A list of accepted synonyms include: presumption, burden, annoyance, intrusion, a levy or tax, even falsehood and trickery.
Taxes are imposed. Burdens are imposed. If I impose upon you, then I'm interrupting your life with my problems, or something that is rightfully my task or burden to do or to carry.
Are the ashes an imposition?
There are a lot of images and meanings that come together in the cruciform imposition of ash. It may never mean exactly the same from year to year, either for the one on whom the ashes are imposed, or for the imposer.
This year, I thought of the scapegoat described in Leviticus 16. "[Aaron, the priest] is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites--all their sins--and put them on the goat's head...The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness" (vss. 21-22, NIV).
You feel sorry for this goat, don't you? I do. It didn't commit any of these sins. It was not rebellious, but it was the one exiled from the people to carry all of it, especially unconfessed and unknown sins, away from the community. The goat was expected to die from exposure or by predators, and the remains of their sin and guilt would die with it. And since they didn't actively kill it, not even that death would be imposed on their heads, so to speak.
The Israelites believed that people could be conduits; they could physically attach blessings and curses onto others by pressing their hands on them. At the same time, they were not deluded by the ritual. They knew that the goat itself was innocent of the sins that were pressed onto its head. They knew this was an imposition upon the creature. It was carrying their sins away from them. Their one hope was to trust that God gave them this means and would gracefully use the goat and the ritual to purge all remaining sins.
It depended from start to finish on the grace of God. It was a dramatic and physical prayer: "God, we have also sinned and let you down in ways that we have forgotten or never realized. For these failures and ignorance, we could be judged and condemned. Instead, hear this confession. Use this goat and this ritual (both of which come from you) to carry any remaining sin and guilt away from us, so that we will be left entirely clean and acceptable to you." The gift and goal was confidence. Nothing, not even unknown or forgotten sins, would remain between God and his people.
Now, jump to the Christian. We take these ashes, which symbolize the confession of our sins and the ways we have wasted or burned up the opportunities God has given us, and we smear them visibly on our heads. This ashen cross is not a way to evangelically proclaim (or brag about) our faith. It is not a sign of holiness or piety. The ash on our heads is actually a confession of our continued sinfulness, our hypocrisy and failures as Christians to respond adequately even to the grace and salvation given to us in Christ. I'm a Christian, and look: I still sin!
Jesus once promised, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you attach, or fix, the sins if any, they shall be attached/fixed to them." The imposition of ashes is the attaching, the imposition of sins and guilt, not on the head of some innocent goat, but where it belongs: on our own heads. Yikes!
And these morbid words nail it home, telling us to "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." In other words, "Christian, you, too, will die and face your maker." This is how we present ourselves to the Maker: honestly sinful and powerless in the end. We are guilty, and we are at his mercy.
Stop right there!! In the act, at very moment those ashes--the symbol of our known and unknown sins--are spread on our heads, they are intercepted by the cruciform baptismal mark of Christ's seal, his claim and promise, which says, "No, this one belongs to me. I already paid the price for all of this."
Are the ashes an imposition? Well, yes. But even as the priest/pastor presses an ash-encrusted thumb forward in a mock attempt to affix sin, shame, and death, Jesus Christ bodily intercepts that imposition.
People often don't know what to do with the ashes after the dramatic ritual. Wear them for others to see? Wear them for the rest of the day as a self-reminder? I have often thought that we should give little moist towelettes to each person. Then, while the words of forgiveness are proclaimed we could in all faith and boldness wipe our foreheads and walk from our sanctuaries as renewed, forgiven, and pure as Christ has made us...
The ashes may be imposed, but the seal of Christ causes them slide right off our heads!
