Ash Wednesday is fast approaching (February 17th). It marks the beginning of the season of Lent - 40 days of reflection, fasting, and repentance from sin. During Lent we are called to take an account of our lives and to radically contend with the darkness in our hearts, the idols we serve, or the ways in which we satisfy our longings that do not glorify God.
We know that sin cuts us off from God. It deliberately turns us away from truth, from goodness, from who we were created to be. 1 John 1:8-9 says,
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us be truthful to God and to others about our sinfulness in the great promise that God is faithful to forgive us. As you come together to worship or for prayer, in your 242 group or over coffee with a friend, consider asking the hard question of yourself and others:
"How do we live our lives as if Christ is not our Lord?"
You will notice that our Lenten worship services have a noticeably more solemn tone. This is because Lent is a serious, somber and uncomfortable time where we are all urged toward a greater reality of our limitations, sinfulness and brokenness so to realize in greater clarity our dependence on Jesus Christ.
In light of this, the Ash Wednesday service is a meaningful way for our community to begin the season of Lent together in repentence of sin but also in hope of God's mercy. Notice that the Collect of the Day for Ash Wednesday articulates our posture for the season with the words:
"Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness."
In addition to prayers and Scripture readings, we will also be imposing ashes during the Ash Wednesday service. The ashes remind us, lest we forget, that our mortal lives are short and it matters how we live. These are the words used as ashes are imposed:
"Remember, that you are dust and to dust you shall return."
These are the words first spoken by God to Adam and Eve on the day of the Fall in Genesis 3:19. They ring down the long corridor of the centuries reminding us of our frailty and weakness.
But dust is not the end, Praise God! The symbolism of Ash Wednesday is powerful. The ashes (which are obtained by burning the palms used on Palm Sunday last year) are placed on our foreheads in the form of the cross. This is a reminder that though we are frail and sinful, there is One who came among us and changed the course of our lives. There is One over whom sin and death have no claim. His death is the destruction of death itself, the wiping out of sin, and the gift of unending life.
Thus the ashes are placed upon a dying people under the sign that this death has itself been transformed by Christ’s enduring it for us. On Ash Wednesday we enter Lent already with the hope of Easter dawning on the horizon.
May this season be a time of true repentence and deep gratitude for all that God has done through Christ. Glory to Him. Glory to Him forever.
