Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. This article will briefly examine the meaning and purpose of Ash Wednesday and explore why Ash Wednesday is essential to the Christian faith.
Meaning of Lent
Lent is the season of the Christian year where believers examine their own humanity and ways they separate themselves from God (sin) to prepare for Jesus' death and resurrection at Easter.
Lent lasts for forty days, reflective of the forty days Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). As Christians enter their own symbolic wilderness during Lent, they remember their own humanity, vulnerable to temptation, just like Jesus in the wilderness.
Why Ash Wednesday Begins Lent
Ash Wednesday begins Lent to remind believers that only with God's help can they overcome their sin and suffering as human beings. As Jesus entered into the wilderness, he needed God to defeat the devil. In a similar manner, believers entering Lent, a season of facing sin, need a reminder of their mortality, Ash Wednesday, to encourage their reliance on God.
Meaning of Ash Wednesday
Jesus calls on God for help to bring him through difficulties in the desert. Ash Wednesday is designed to remind believers that they, too, are vulnerable and need God's help. Believers wear ashes on their forehead to remind themselves of their mortality as they journey into the Lenten season.
Ritual of Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wednesday, Christians attend a church service where a minister or another Christian will mark believers' foreheads with ashes (imposition of ashes) and utter a variation of, "remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return."
The ashes remind believers that they will die and will literally rot away without God's gift of eternal life, which Christians believe comes from Jesus Christ. The believer then leaves the service, marked with a symbol of her or his humanity, as an invitation for penance (reflecting on one's sins and asking God for help).
Jesus died and rose again, in the Christian tradition, to save those who confessed their sins, essentially those who are human. Being human is a necessary condition for God's salvation.
Ash Wednesday is a time for Christians to remember their own mortality and ask for God's help, just as Jesus did in the wilderness, so that they might be saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For more on prayer this Lent or at any time, Prayers of Oblation: How to Give the Self and Grow in Relationships may be of interest. A simple Bible study exercise, Lectio Divina Devotion: An Early Christian Bible Study Adapted for Today might also be useful during Lent.
Melissa Roberts - A trained hospital chaplain, Melissa is a freelance writer, teacher, retreat leader, and spiritual director.
