Sackcloth and ashes

"I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt; I lay facedown in the dirt." By doing this, Job is admitting his sinfulness.

Here is an excerpt from a friend's Ash Wednesday sermon:
Ashes are a rich symbol:
Ashes suggest judgment and God's condemnation of sin.
Ashes remind us of our frailty, our total dependence upon God for life.
We are reminded of the words of the committal in the burial service, "...earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Someday, those words will be said over us.
Ashes are a symbol of repentance. When people in the Bible feel sorry for the bad things they have done, they wear sackcloth and ashes, put ashes on their heads, or sit in dust and ashes.
But ashes also represent cleansing and renewal. In the past, ashes were used as a cleansing agent in the absence of soap.
In a way, the ashen cross on our foreheads reminds us of the water of our baptism. When we baptize a child, we also make the mark of the cross on her forehead and say, "You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."
The ashes remind us of that seal of the Holy Spirit and that mark of the cross of Christ that is branded on our souls forever.

This is a turning point in the chapter.

So far, a lot of courtroom imagery has been used. God is the only righteous judge. Job is struggling with what precisely he did wrong. Remember the cause and effect beliefs of the Old Testament Hebrew culture. If something bad happens to you, God must be behind it. We now believe that earthquakes and tsunamis are a result of forces in the world that can be better explained by science than coming from the hand of God. I believe God acts through his people in recovery efforts.

In verse one, Job is defending himself. After the sackcloth and ashes bit, he says, "There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God. I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor."

That's why the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood...