Ashes and Resurrection

Resurrection Sunday is only a few weeks away. Are we are thinking much about it?

I work for a carpet manufacturing company in Aberdeen, N.C., and a few weeks ago, around noon, was headed across the company parking lot when I saw a Hispanic employee park her car and walk toward our company’s main building. I was 15 feet behind her, and when she turned and smiled before she entered the mill, I saw a charcoal-colored mark on her forehead. Someone had dipped a finger into ashes and drawn a small cross about an inch above the lady’s eyes.

“She’s been to an Ash Wednesday service,” I thought, assuming she had taken a morning off from work to attend church and celebrate the beginning of “Lent.”

Many Christians practiced Lent – the word “Lent” comes from an early English word for “spring” – prior to the reformation that made Martin Luther famous almost 500 years ago. Many Protestants abandoned the formal practice of Lent at that time. It is still largely celebrated among Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans.

The Lenten Season began this year on Wednesday, March 9, and ends on Saturday, April 23, the day before Resurrection Sunday, or Easter Sunday. The six Sundays among the 46 days of Lent are not counted; each Sunday represents a “mini-Easter,” celebrating Jesus’ victory over sin and death. In Western Christianity’s calendar, Lent and Easter are movable; Ash Wednesday can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10.

According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent 40 days fasting and being tempted before he began his public ministry. Ash Wednesday marks the start of a 40-day period of prayer and fasting. It gets name from the practice of placing ashes on foreheads as a sign of mourning and repentance. This practice also signifies humans are “fallen” and will always deal with sin while living in mortal bodies.

Old Testament believers associated ashes with repentance. The prophet Daniel said, “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3).

Ashes utilized on Ash Wednesday are often made from palms used during the previous year’s Palm Sunday. Palms are burned and the ashes mixed with olive oil.

After the lady with ashes on her forehead turned and smiled at me, I thought, “Hum-m-m, Easter will soon be here. I haven’t thought a lot about it this year.” I wondered if I had become too preoccupied with worrying about how the world seems to be, as the old folks used to say, “going to hell in a handbasket” and worrying about wars and rumors of wars and about President Obama and Libya and about gas and food prices and about earthquakes and tidal waves and politicians and about how I should have saved more money before I got old and about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….

The Hispanic lady and her smile put me “under conviction.” I hadn’t lately thought about Christ as much as I had about “Christianity” and its place in the world. I’d recently grown lax about praying and reading the Bible and had read much about “defending the Faith” against false religions and about how to debate people who try to tear down the Bible. Years ago, I was a young high school art teacher sitting at a faculty lunch table when an older teacher, a Christian, said, “I feel I know enough about my faith to debate anybody.” I then felt “turned off” by his words and thought, “That’s a bit arrogant.” Had I become like that man?

The lady with ashes on her forehead caused me to feel I’d recently missed something. I recalled these words written to the pastor and church in Ephesus: “These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: ‘I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil…and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelation 2:1-4 New KJV).

Father, as Resurrection Sunday approaches, help us repent and turn our faces toward Jesus. Help us truly “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).