Ash Wednesday is one of those days that quietly preaches a sermon all on its own.
It’s a day that feels both ordinary and holy at the same time.
We go to work, run errands, pick up kids – and yet we carry a visible reminder that we are dust and also deeply loved.
As we move into this season of Lent, I’ve been contemplating on what it means to carry ashes on our foreheads and humility in our hearts.
I recently came across this reflection from Crosswalk by John Stonestreet that captures this and shows just how countercultural this day – no, this entire Lenten season – truly is. It’s thoughtful, honest, and rooted in the gospel. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me.
In many ways, today is one of the strangest days of the year. Everywhere—at work, the grocery store, shopping, exercising—we’ll see all kinds of people walking around with dark smudges on their foreheads. Now whether or not their own church participates in this ritual, most Christians will know that the smudge is the sign of the cross, and that today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.
To the unbelieving world, Ash Wednesday is at best quaint (it’s sort of cool to have traditions, you know). At worst, it’s somewhere between bizarre and even anti-social. After all, to a culture committed to the pursuit of self-fulfillment and feeling good about oneself, this whole fasting and self-sacrifice stuff is an existential smack in the face.
Think of how these words contrast with our contemporary illusions of autonomy and self-determination: I am not my own. And I will die one day. And so will you. As the minister tells us when he rubs the ashes on our foreheads, “remember thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.”
Those words sit heavy and are uncomfortable to think about, and they’re meant to be. They remind us that our faith is not about self-improvement or being all that we can be, but about honest dependence on the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.
And here’s the bolder statement still, a way-more-weird and counter-cultural claim—We are rotten to the core. We are sinners. So much so that God became a man and died on a cross in our place. He loved us that much! And then, get this: He came back to life. His body wasn’t eaten by worms in a tomb. He was resurrected from the dead.
What happened on that Resurrection Day, which we’ll commemorate 40 days from now, is the most important event in the history of the world. We confess it because what it says about God, the universe, and us is TRUE. On Ash Wednesday and during the season of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving called Lent, we redouble our efforts to heed Jesus’ call to pick up our crosses and follow him. We meditate and remember with Paul that we have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.
Crucified with Christ! Our hopes, desires, politics, intellect, and yes, even our sexuality – crucified with Christ. What a thing to say! Jesus, who redeemed us by His blood, lays claim to all of these things.
Some of that is not easy to hear – but this season helps us realize that its NOT about adding Jesus TO our lives, but about allowing Him to reshape every part of who we are. Lent invites us back into that truth.
This is a God who says the two greatest commandments are to love Him with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And as Jesus said, to love Him is to obey Him (talk about counter cultural!) and to believe in the One He has sent. To love our neighbors, we preach the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection and His triumph over sin and death. We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, take care of the widow and orphans.
Technically only having TWO things to remember in order to be “perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect” – should be easy right? But goodness they are some of the most difficult commandments! So many things are vying for our very soul, and yet – ours belongs to HIM. But do we act like it?
Friend, what could be more authentic, more relevant, than to conform our lives to Jesus, who is the Way the Truth and the Life? Jesus did not and will not conform Himself to the culture. Why would we? How dare we urge others to? As Paul says, we were called to freedom in Christ, which is a freedom from conformity and from the desires of the flesh and a freedom to serve one another in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5). Now that’s a lot to swallow, which is one reason that for nearly two millennia, Christians have taken this long season of Lent as an opportunity to repent of our conformity to the world, draw near to Jesus, and prepare ourselves to celebrate the day that changed the universe.
Whew! While the author’s words are powerful and enlightening, they are also sharp – cutting away any and all excuses. They remind us that our home is not ultimately in this world. Yes, we live in it and work for its good, but it is not where our deepest hope belongs.
For almost every year it was in production, my family went to see the Atlanta Passion Play. It became such a part of my core memories and one of the ways Scripture came to life. Watching Jesus portrayed as truly Divine and truly Human in such a realistic way, made the gospel feel personal. And real. And also, costly.
It reminded me that faith is not just a tradition, but a relationship with a Savior who entered our dust, carried our sin, and conquered death.
That is what Lent leads us toward. Not perfection or performance. But honest repentance and love.
These forty days invite us to lay down what is fleeting and to take hold again of what is eternal.
So as we walk through this season, don’t rush through it. Don’t let our overly full calendars take yet another thing from us. Pause, breathe, and make space to listen, to pray, and to let Jesus do His quiet, faithful work in us.
Quote credit: https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/breakpoint-daily-commentary/we-are-not-our-own-the-counter-cultural-season-of-lent.html