Why We Do What We Do | Ash Wednesday and Lent
This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the six-week season leading up to what is known as the Pascha (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday). Lent is traditionally a time for us to intentionally set aside the things in our everyday lives that separate us from God and to focus on living lives of holiness and obedience for the glory of God. Lent is a season marked by repentance and faith. Of course, this is an everyday posture of worship for us! Yet Lent serves to reorient us again in the reality that we are sinful people whom a merciful Savior saves.
Lent prompts us to consider the greatness of a holy God and experience his presence in our lives, and as we do so, we become mindful of our sin and idolatry. God does not turn us away but invites us to confess our sins and be cleansed. Here, we find a regular rhythm of worship, but we have a heightened sense of our need for forgiveness during Lent.
Lent also helps us to intentionally set aside time in the presence of God to take an honest look at ourselves. Like David, we call out from Psalm 139:23-24:
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Lent moves us to think about our inner motivations, external behaviors, hearts, and habits. Standing before a holy God who knows everything about us takes courage and humility. And so, we humble ourselves before the eternal God who created us and who must, if we are to live, redeem us.
In Lent, we again turn away from our sins and temptations and toward God and his great mercy, otherwise known as repentance. In this posture of worship, we resolve to leave our sinful lifestyle and seek forgiveness for our sins. To repent is to turn sharply away from living in our ways, for our pleasure and our glory, and instead, we flee to Christ, resolving to live in his ways, for his pleasure and his glory.
At the heart of Lent are ‘dust’ and ‘ashes.’ These symbolize two themes we find in Lent: our creaturely mortality and our moral culpability. Dust speaks of our physical dependence on God, and ashes signify our spiritual repentance before God. We see in Scripture that ashes or dust symbolize mortality, mourning, judgment, and repentance. During a traditional Ash Wednesday service, ashes are applied on a worshiper’s head in the shape of a cross to give a tangible reminder that we come from dust and are fragile, fallible, and fallen human beings. But the shape of the cross also serves as a tangible reminder of what Paul says in Romans 6:11: we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We believe the Lent season is a powerful time for us as FBC to meditate on our need for a Savior, renew our commitment to daily repentance, and remember with confidence and gratitude that Jesus has conquered sin and death.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll consider what it looks like to step into this season of Lent, trusting God to continually shape our hearts toward repentance, belief, and obedience to Jesus and his ways.
We will have an Ash Wednesday gathering this Wednesday, February 14th, at 6:30 pm to mark this Lenten season. Yes, ashes will be available for those who wish to participate. Yes, we will take time to confess our sins to a God who loves us and who wants to transform us, who describes himself as “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment” (Joel 2:13). Yes, we will sing, reflect, remember, and respond to the gospel. We hope you join us.
We pray with and for you, FBC, during this Lenten season.
-Pastor Wade
