This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the church season of Lent. Lent is the 40 days (not including Sundays) before Easter. Like Jesus, who spent 40 days in the wilderness praying and fasting in preparation for his ministry, we Christians spend these 40 days in preparation for the celebration of Easter.
On Wednesday, both churches will worship together as we write down on a slip of paper, one thing we’d like to put behind us this year as we begin this Lenten season. It could be a statement of regret, a bad habit, an attitude toward an enemy, an addiction, or something we wish we would have never said, or done. Maybe this year you’ll write down the name of a person that represents a relationship you threw away. And now, you wish you had that relationship back. Maybe its just some part of your life that feels stuck in a rut, and you’d like to ask God to help you climb out of that rut and move in a different direction.
After we’ve written something down, we’ll be given a chance to bring our folded piece of paper forward and place it with others in a bowl to be burned as a symbol of offering it over to God. Then we’ll celebrate Holy Communion and receive the mark of the cross in ashes on our foreheads, hearing the words that have been said since around the year 900 when Christians began celebrating Ash Wednesday, “From dust you came, and to dust you will return.”
Ash Wednesday marks the end of old things and the hope of new things to come. On that day, we remember that when we choose, with God’s help, we can turn our lives around; dying to old ways and rising as a new child of God.
It’s time to start praying; asking God what you need to put on your slip of paper this year at the Ash Wednesday service. What aspect of your life would you like to see go up in smoke?
Grace & Peace,
1 comment:
Ah, tradition! I actually use this in my churches now.
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