Ash Wednesday this year (2024) is on Wednesday, February 14
Let me say at the outset that I won’t be using ashes on Ash Wednesday this year at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Lodi, Ohio, where I serve as pastor. Here’s why:
I confess that, as a seventy-one-year-old, lifelong Lutheran, I’ve always been uncomfortable about the idea of receiving ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday. That’s not something that happened in the church where I was a kid, nor in the church where I was confirmed. It’s not something that I’ve often practiced as a pastor in the three churches that I’ve served, until just a few years ago. Even over the last few years, when I’ve put ashes on the foreheads of other people because they’ve requested that I do it, I haven’t put them on my own forehead, nor have I asked someone else to do it for me. I haven’t had a good reason for using ashes on Ash Wednesday, but I haven’t had a good reason for not doing it, either. To tell you the truth, I haven’t much thought about the reasons for or against – until now.
In the Old Testament, ashes were used for a number of purposes, including as a sign of mourning or grief. Eventually this grief also included grief over one’s own sins, and so the ashes became an outward sign of penitence. But the overuse and misunderstanding of this outward sign eventually led to the Lord saying (through the prophet Isaiah, 58:3b-5):
“On the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
Centuries later, during His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:1, 16-18) Jesus preached “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. . . . When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
The Imposition of Ashes (that’s what it’s called when the pastor puts the ashes on your head on Ash Wednesday) is not about grace, forgiveness, salvation, or living as one of God’s chosen and beloved people; it’s about reminding you about the threat of God’s wrath and eternal punishment for all sin, including your own. Perhaps some people do need to be threatened with that on Ash Wednesday; but it seems to me that if I’m ever going to make the sign of the cross on your forehead it should not be with ashes to threaten you, it should be with just my fingers to remind you that at your baptism you received “the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon you heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified.”
During Lent this year we won’t be concerned with threatening you with God’s punishment, nor with things that you might “give up” to demonstrate your sorrow about your sins. Instead, we’ll continue to be reminded each Sunday about the acronym we’ve been reviewing for the past month – Sin, Confession, Absolution, Restoration, and Sanctification (= ”S.C.A.R.S.”) – that we learned from Zach Zehnder’s “Forgiving Challenge”. Because we have been forgiven and restored by the work of Jesus, we can turn our attention this Lent from our own selves to the people around us who are in need of the light of Jesus Christ that we who are His people can show them through our works of service.
You can download and print the worship service for Ash Wednesday from this link https://bit.ly/3wbySHj; you can see the entire schedule for our Lenten journey through the Serving Challenge at https://ctklodi-serving-challenge.mystrikingly.com/
#AshWednesday #RedLetterChallenge #ForgivingChallenge #ServingChallenge
Let me say at the outset that I won’t be using ashes on Ash Wednesday this year at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Lodi, Ohio, where I serve as pastor. Here’s why:
I confess that, as a seventy-one-year-old, lifelong Lutheran, I’ve always been uncomfortable about the idea of receiving ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday. That’s not something that happened in the church where I was a kid, nor in the church where I was confirmed. It’s not something that I’ve often practiced as a pastor in the three churches that I’ve served, until just a few years ago. Even over the last few years, when I’ve put ashes on the foreheads of other people because they’ve requested that I do it, I haven’t put them on my own forehead, nor have I asked someone else to do it for me. I haven’t had a good reason for using ashes on Ash Wednesday, but I haven’t had a good reason for not doing it, either. To tell you the truth, I haven’t much thought about the reasons for or against – until now.
In the Old Testament, ashes were used for a number of purposes, including as a sign of mourning or grief. Eventually this grief also included grief over one’s own sins, and so the ashes became an outward sign of penitence. But the overuse and misunderstanding of this outward sign eventually led to the Lord saying (through the prophet Isaiah, 58:3b-5):
“On the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
Centuries later, during His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:1, 16-18) Jesus preached “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. . . . When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
The Imposition of Ashes (that’s what it’s called when the pastor puts the ashes on your head on Ash Wednesday) is not about grace, forgiveness, salvation, or living as one of God’s chosen and beloved people; it’s about reminding you about the threat of God’s wrath and eternal punishment for all sin, including your own. Perhaps some people do need to be threatened with that on Ash Wednesday; but it seems to me that if I’m ever going to make the sign of the cross on your forehead it should not be with ashes to threaten you, it should be with just my fingers to remind you that at your baptism you received “the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon you heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified.”
During Lent this year we won’t be concerned with threatening you with God’s punishment, nor with things that you might “give up” to demonstrate your sorrow about your sins. Instead, we’ll continue to be reminded each Sunday about the acronym we’ve been reviewing for the past month – Sin, Confession, Absolution, Restoration, and Sanctification (= ”S.C.A.R.S.”) – that we learned from Zach Zehnder’s “Forgiving Challenge”. Because we have been forgiven and restored by the work of Jesus, we can turn our attention this Lent from our own selves to the people around us who are in need of the light of Jesus Christ that we who are His people can show them through our works of service.
You can download and print the worship service for Ash Wednesday from this link https://bit.ly/3wbySHj; you can see the entire schedule for our Lenten journey through the Serving Challenge at https://ctklodi-serving-challenge.mystrikingly.com/
#AshWednesday #RedLetterChallenge #ForgivingChallenge #ServingChallenge