- The season of Lent: Lent may originally have followed Epiphany, just as Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness followed immediately on his baptism, but it soon became firmly attached to Easter, as the principal occasion for baptism and for the reconciliation of those who had been excluded from the Church’s fellowship for apostasy or serious faults. This history explains the characteristic notes of Lent – self-examination, penitence, self-denial, study, and preparation for Easter, to which almsgiving has traditionally been added… As the candidates for baptism were instructed in Christian faith, and as penitents prepared themselves, through fasting and penance, to be readmitted to communion, the whole Christian community was invited to join them in the process of study and repentance, the extension of which over forty days would remind them of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, being tested by Satan. Ashes are an ancient sign of penitence; from the middle ages it became the custom to begin Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross.1
- As away of general introduction, Ash Wednesday is the first day of the Season of Lent, and a day of penitence to clean the soul in commencement of Lent – (a forty day period, during which Christians remember their sinfulness, repent, ask God’s forgiveness, and recognise that God’s forgiveness comes at an infinite price). It falls on the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday and it is usually celebrated by special services, whereby Christians are marked with ashes as a symbol of death, and sorrow for sin. Lent consists of the 40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays. In sum it is a time of soul-searching and repentance, a time in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection on Good Friday and Easter.
- On Ash Wednesday services, Christians experience the biblical tradition by being marked on the forehead with a cross of ashes as a sign of penitence and mortality, which is reflected in the Lord ’s Prayer: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us” (Luke 11:4, NRSV).
- The name “Ash Wednesday” is derived from the ancient practice of placing ashes on church members’ heads or foreheads as a sign of humility before God, a symbol of mourning and sorrow at the death that sin brings into the world.
- In the early church, ashes were not offered to everyone but were only used to mark the forehead of worshippers who had made public confession of sin and sought to be restored to the fellowship of the community at the Easter celebration. However, over the years others began to show their humility and identification with the penitents by asking that they, too, be marked as sinners. Finally, the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are now observed in many Christian churches on Ash Wednesday.
- The act of application of the mark varies from congregation to congregation whilst at some churches the worshippers leave with the mark still on their forehead in order to carry the sign of the cross out into the world, in other churches the service ends with the ashes being washed off their foreheads, as a sign that the participants have been cleansed of their sins.
- The marking of forehead with a cross made of ashes should remind Christians that:
- death comes to everyone;
- they should be sad for their sins;
- they should repent of their sins2
- God made the first human being by breathing life into dust, and without God, human beings are nothing more than dust and ashes;
- the ashes are symbolic mark of the cross made at baptism;
- the cross of ashes further symbolize the way Christ was sacrificed on the cross – a sacrifice seen as atonement for sin which replaced the Old Testament tradition of making burnt offerings to atone for sin;
- ashes (and “sackcloth,” or rough, plain clothing, usually of camel’s hair) traditionally represent, mourning3 and repentance4; and
- the Judgment of God5.
- Ash Wednesday is about avoiding the judgement of God, and thus more or less a repeat of what happened in the time of Jonah, who delivered the message of terrible judgement of God for the people of Nineveh. As the Scriptures tell us, when Jonah preached God’s coming judgment against Nineveh, the pagan king of Nineveh and his subjects understood that if a nation repents from its evil ways, God may withhold His judgment so they repented, proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth and prayed that God would spare them6. Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it7. In the same way we ought to use Ash Wednesday as a day of genuine repentance for we are all sinners, so God may cover and forget our iniquities.
- The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are made by burning the palm crosses that were blessed at the previous Palm Sunday the year before. Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, so when the crosses used in the Palm Sunday service are converted to ashes, Christians should be reminded that defeat and crucifixion swiftly followed triumph. Upon marking the ashes as a cross on the believer’s forehead, it symbolises that through Christ’s death and resurrection, all Christians can be free from sin. The ash may sometimes be mixed with anointing oil, which makes sure that the ashes make a good mark. The use of anointing oil should also remind one of God’s blessings and of the anointing that took place at their baptism. The act of burning the palm crosses are usually symbolized with prayers that “God our Father, you create us from the dust of the earth. Grant that these ashes may be for us a sign of our penitence and a symbol of our mortality”.
- The minister or priest marks each worshipper on the forehead, and says “remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return”, or a similar phrase based on God’s sentence on Adam in Genesis 3:19. In the alternative some priests say “Turn away from sin and believe the gospel” as the ashes are being administered.
- Ash Wednesday, and indeed the whole of Lent is a reminder of God’s love. It is not meant as a time of false humility or prideful self-sacrifice. It reminds us that our sin separates us from God, who “demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – See Romans 5:8.
- Ash Wednesday, therefore, should remind Christians that they are sinners in need of a Saviour, and that their salvation comes at the sacrifice of God’s Son, for it is written that: “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” – Hebrew 9:11-12.
- Ash Wednesday therefore ought to be a somber day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives if we are to be fully Christian. Ash Wednesday not only symbolizes the mourning at the death of Jesus, but also places Christians in a position to reflect on the consequences of sin.
