3 Key points for Ash Wednesday
Sarah Bentley Allred at Virginia Theological Seminary recently identified 3 teaching points for Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday marks the first day of the season of Lent, the forty days set aside to prepare to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Now, we spend forty days preparing just as Jesus spent forty days in the desert fasting and getting ready for his public ministry.
1 The Call to A Holy Lent “Our liturgy directly invites us into a holy season of specific practices aimed at helping us reconnect with God in preparation for the celebration of Easter. “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 265) What practices are mostly meaningful to examine the course of your religious life ?”
2. We are dust “Many Ash Wednesday liturgies provide an opportunity for worshipers to receive the mark of the cross in ashes on their forehead accompanied by the words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” There are many layers of meaning within this simple, powerful ritual. There is the call to remember God created us from the earth (Genesis 2:7). It is by the grace of God that we live and move and have our being and we are inextricably linked to the earth from which we were created.
“There is also the call to remember our connection to the rest of humanity. We are all made from the same “stuff.” We come from dust and we dwell in skin, bone, blood, and cartilage. And there is the call to remember we will return to the earth from whence we came (Genesis 3:19). Ash Wednesday provides us that rarely comfortable, but certainly important opportunity to sit with our own mortality.”
3. Repentance “To repent is to both acknowledge that we have not loved God with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves AND to make every effort to do things differently. Repentance is about turning away from behavior that is not in alignment with these two great commandments. Rather than something to check off the to-do list, repentance is a practice. Being human means we will never be fully without sin and we will never outgrow the need for God’s forgiveness”
Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, 7pm service
Although the imposition of ashes is not a sacrament like baptism or the Eucharist, receiving ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday is a valuable reminder of several things. Receiving ashes reminds us that we are created from the earth, and that God’s grace gives us life. Our life is linked to the earth from which we were created.
Receiving ashes reminds us that we are connected the rest of humanity and to all living things. We are ALL made from the earth. We ALL dwell in skin, bone, blood, and cartilage. And we will return to the earth at the end of our lives here on earth. Ashes on our forehead remind us to sit with our own mortality, an important exercise in humility.
During the Ash Wednesday service online, we will impose ashes on the foreheads of others in our households or place the ashes on our own foreheads if we are alone.
From Catherine “I plan to burn last Palm Sunday’s palms on Wednesday, February 17th, at St Peter’s. If you’d like ashes from the church, you may come to the church between four and five pm to receive ashes for the evening service. Bring a small container with you for your ashes.”
If you can’t come by church for your ashes, you can get ashes from your fireplace or from your fire pit.