Post 93—Ash Wednesday

I wonder: Did you observe Ash Wednesday this month?  It fell on Wednesday, February 10. As the name makes obvious, it always is celebrated on Wednesday.  But perhaps, before asking whether you observed it this past week, a prior question is whether you even know what it is. A second question is, even if you know what it is, whether you gave it any thought at all. The answer to the last question probably depends on which church you attend and whether your church pays attention to it. Some churches or denominations do; others ignore it. I attend two different churches/denominations, and both observed it by holding special services on the evening of February 10.

So what is Ash Wednesday? Wikipedia gives the following bare, curt definition: “the first day of Lent in the Western Christian Church, marked by services of penitence.”  As if the writer regrets this curt version, she/he then provides a few more details: “a day of fasting, is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It (normally) occurs 46 days…before Easter and can fall as early as February 4th or as late as 10 March. Ash Wednesday is observed by many Western Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists,Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics.”  More recently denominations like the Christian Reformed Church and some Baptist groups have also begun to observe it.  The more recent arrivals have dropped the fasting part of it.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness or desert, during which time he faced satanic temptations. The 40 days of Lent, which Ash Wednesday is day 1, mirrors this period of fasting. The name itself comes from the ashes made from palm branches that were used on the previous year’s Palm Sunday. These ashes were/are placed in the form of a cross on the foreheads of the participants by a clergy person, accompanied with formulae like “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19) or  “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). The first and more original of the two sayings are the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their fall into sin and remind worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality along with their need to repent. 

Ash Wednesday in some countries is enriched by some additional traditions. For example, I understand that on that day the Pope traditionally participates in a penitential procession between two churches, where ashes are sprinkled on his head—not smudged on his forehead--, while the Pope also places ashes on the heads of other worshippers. The Catholic Church and, more recently, some Protestant churches as well, participate in the “Ashes to Go” programme, during which clergy go to public places like downtowns, sidewalks, train stations, malls to place ashes on passersby, sometimes even on drivers waiting at stoplights! Another innovation is for small cards to be distributed among the congregation on which people are invited to write a sin they need to confess. These cards are then brought to an altar or table where they are burned. 

The association of ashes with grief, sorrow or repentance has ancient Biblical and cultural roots, even among Israel’s Pagan neighbours as in Nineveh. When Tamar was raped by her half-brother, she sprinkled ashes on her head…and went away crying (2 Samuel 13:19). Job said in Job 42:3-6, “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” The prophet Jeremiah called for repentance, “O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes” (Jeremiah 6:26). Daniel pleaded to God “in earnest prayer with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). In the New Testament, Jesus spoke of the practice: “If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 3:47; Luke 10:13). There is also reference to it in Hebrews 9:13. 

So my wife and I participated in the ceremony at First Baptist Church in downtown Vancouver. But it was not merely a ceremony; it was a living experience what with the readings, prayers and hymns that goaded us towards a renewed sense of our sinfulness, mortality and need to repent. Though these are daily elements in the heart of a born-again Christian—or should be—a ceremony like this refreshes that awareness and stimulates one’s resolve to revive it. I am happy that I participated in this first step into Lent. The beauty of it all is that, paradoxically, after one goes through what sounds like a macabre exercise, one comes away from it with renewed joy and peace in his heart.

If you have not been in the habit, I strongly recommend attending Ash Wednesday 2017.  Especially for the born-again, for those who are alive in Christ, it is a blessed way of starting your Lenten journey towards the Resurrection of our Lord.