When I was a kid, my understanding of Ash Wednesday was murky at best. It was one of those weird things Catholics did.
My Lent-long series on How to Grow through Giving Up begins with answering the question…
What is Ash Wednesday?
In junior high there was a girl in my class who got to leave school one day a year, and came back with weird gray marks on her forehead. The cross-like smudge was as meaningless to me as a bindi. I didn’t know what it had to do with her not being able to eat meat, either. Wait! That’s why there are so many Fish Fry Fridays around here?!?
I learned that Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent… a time when Catholics stop eating meat on Fridays because they think it pleases God. The traditional practices of Catholicism flummoxed me. Why did they think they needed to confess to a priest when we have Jesus? Who does the priest think he is, any way, and what’s up with reciting things about Mary to be forgiven? They worship Mary and other dead people they call saints? Candles. Incense. Latin.
Although I’ll never agree with the Catholic Church on everything, Lent is beautiful. It wasn’t tradition in Evangelical churches I grew up in, but it isn’t a strange ritual reserved for Catholics. It’s a useful observance for the entire Body of Christ.
There’s growing understanding and appreciation of Lent in non-liturgical Evangelical denominations and churches, but the ceremony of Ash Wednesday is still largely unpracticed, and slightly mysterious.
I love the symbolism…
The Tragedy of the Triumph
From Hosanna! to Crucify!
I don’t understand why Palm Sunday is typically a day of celebration…
On the Sunday before Easter, the church commemorates the people’s excitement as Jesus made His way into Jerusalem.
Hosanna! they shouted, waving palm branches, and laying them in the path of His donkey. Many churches give out palm branches, and children in Sunday Schools act out the people’s adoration.
But soon after they welcomed Him with joy, the people turned on Him. Their hope for a Messiah, Savior, Deliverer, King turned to hatred for the One who would not lead them against their Roman oppressors. Their religious leaders, whose power and authority Jesus threatened, pressed their advantage and the people’s cry hardened to Crucify!
Palm Sunday makes me feel sad.
God’s people were waiting for their Messiah. They longed for rescue from Roman oppression. Other men had captured their attention, but weren’t the Promised One. Then, after 400 years of God’s silence, came Jesus. He was unlike any other. The miracles He could perform! The people’s cries of Hosanna? They were crying out for Him to save them.
But the salvation He brought was not the salvation they sought.
The Triumph of the Tragedy
From Gethsemane, to Golgotha, to an Empty Tomb
They came for Him on Thursday night.
During the Passover meal with His disciples, He had warned them of what was coming, but they still didn’t understand. They still believed He was the Messiah. They must have believed He had a plan, and not one that involved Him being crucified. He showed them how to serve by washing their feet.
Then they went to a place called Gethsemane. The few disciples He took the furthest with Him, could not stay awake to pray as He asked. He agonized alone over the suffering that lay ahead, until the ones who sought His life came, and He was betrayed with a kiss.
He let them take Him. All His followers ran away.
The next day, He was mocked, spit on, and beaten beyond recognition before being taken outside the city to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, where He was subjected to an excruciating, shameful death on a cross.
Jesus let it all happen, because He knew it was His Father’s will.
The religious leaders had their way. Jesus was dead. His followers’ hope died was sealed behind a rock with Him in His tomb.
But that wasn’t the end.
On Sunday, the Tomb was empty.
Jesus was alive.
Jesus is alive.
He willingly endured for His Father’s glory, and our redemption.
In Him, we have life.
He deserves our praise. Our hearts. Our minds. Our strength. Our time. Everything.
God deserves our praise. Our hearts, minds, strength, time. EVERYTHING. #givingupforLent Click To TweetBut there are so many other things, lesser things, that grab our attention. We let them pull us away from what is best, and give endless reasons to choose our way over His way.
Ashes to Ashes
I love this part: The ash used for Ash Wednesday is meant to be the from the burning of the previous year’s palm fronds.
Anything that is not true worship of God as He says He is, is empty, meaningless, useless. It stains us.
Empty worship, burned to ash.
The ash reminds us of our mortality. It reminds us of the worthlessness of lesser things than God.
For the Catholic, accepting the cross of ash is meant to be an outward sign of penitence.
It represents sorrow, a mourning over sin and all that we let come between us and God.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Forty days of self-denial leading up to Easter, Resurrection Sunday.
Want to know more about what Lent is? Check out more here.
Giving Up for Lent
An arbitrary abstinence from something, like meat on Fridays, without consideration of why, and how giving up that thing frees us from what dishonors Christ to make room for more of His likeness in us, is meaningless.
Lent is a time to consider what holds us back from full obedience to, and communion with, God… and let it go.
Read more about why and how to give up for Lent.
Check out the Check out the rest of the How to Grow through Giving Up series.