Lent and the story told by the Christian Calendar

Wednesday, March 6^th, is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of the Lenten Season within the Christian calendar. Lent dates all the way back to the fourth century and originally was a season for recent converts to prepare for their first baptism on Easter Sunday. Its forty days correspond to Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness (cf. Matt. 4:2). By counting forty days back from Easter (excluding Sundays, which remain celebratory in remembrance of the resurrection), Christians arrived at the Wednesday seven weeks before Easter. 

With the passage of time Lent became a general period of reflection and renewal for all Christians. During this season, Christians now reflect on the necessity of the cross and Jesus’ suffering for our sins. Corresponding to these themes Christians have also used this season to cultivate greater awareness of individual sin, to deepen in true repentance, and to practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting to aid in that reflection. Lent, then, is a preparatory season in which we remember our need for the cross and reflect on the cruciform path our Savior traveled.

The specific aim of Ash Wednesday is threefold: 1) to meditate on our mortality, sinfulness and need of a savior; 2) to renew our commitment to daily repentance in the Lenten season and in all of life; and 3) to remember with confidence and gratitude that Christ has conquered death and sin. Ash Wednesday worship is filled with Gospel truth. It is a witness to the power and beauty of our union with Christ and to the daily dying and rising with Christ this entails.

The imposition of ashes with the sign of the cross and accompanied by the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is a central part of the worship service. Ashes have a long history in Biblical and church traditions. In Scripture ashes or dust symbolize frailty or death (Gen. 3:19, 18:27), sadness or mourning (Esther 4:3; Job 2:8), judgment (Lam. 3:16), and repentance (Jon. 3:6). All of these themes are present in the church’s use of ashes during this worship service. The imposition of ashes, therefore, is a symbolic, vivid and tangible reminder of our sinfulness and mortality and of our utter dependence upon the grace of God and the power of Christ’s resurrection.

If observing the Christian calendar is new to you, practices and services like this can feel foreign. It is important to remember that the Christian Calendar, at its best, is an invitation to live our saving story. There’s no requirement here. Inherent in observing the Calendar is the common recognition that the most important truths are remembered best when they’re practiced by faithful traditions or stories. The Calendar, then, is nothing more than a tool to get the Gospel into us.

Ash Wednesday is a good example of this freedom. No worshipper should feel compelled to come forward to receive ashes. Neither should this practice be seen as a way of displaying one’s piety before others. There is nothing inappropriate about removing the ashes from your forehead upon exiting the sanctuary, if you so choose. Rather, it is hoped that Ash Wednesday ushers each worshipper (ashes or no ashes) into this Lenten season, leading to a heightened sense of reflection upon our need for Jesus Christ’s saving work and to a deepening commitment in our discipleship of him.

This wisdom also applies more broadly to our observance of the entire Christian Calendar. As Protestants, we sometimes become fearful about such observances, thinking they’re empty superstitions. To be sure, that has sometimes been the case and Scripture warns against such abuse (cf. Matt. 6:16-18). The Reformation too remains a sentinel over the failure of all hollow religiosity.

Even so, a failure to practice our remembrance of the Christian faith has its own liabilities. We can’t reduce our faith to mere facts, disconnected truths or doctrines about which we either agree or disagree. When we do this we turn the Bible into a book of religious data instead of the story of our redemption by our gracious God. Of course, there’s no denying that Christianity requires we affirm critical doctrines, but it does so in the context of a bigger covenant story of grace.

That story, broadly told in the chapters of creation, sin, redemption and glorification, is the only story that saves. It is this story that uniquely brings hope to this world and must be both believed and lived.

I hope you’ll join us this Ash Wednesday at noon as we begin our Lenten journey!