Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline.

Ash Wednesday emphasizes two themes: our sinfulness before God and our human mortality. The service focuses on both themes, helping us to realize that both have been triumphed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During some Ash Wednesday services, the minister will lightly rub the sign of the cross with ashes onto the foreheads of worshipers. The use of ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance has a long history in Jewish and Christian worship. Historically, ashes signified purification and sorrow for sins.

It is traditional to save the palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday service to burn to produce ashes for this service. Sometimes a small card or piece of paper is distributed on which each person writes a sin or hurtful or unjust characteristic. The cards are then brought to the altar to be burned with the palm branches. The ash cross on the forehead is an outward sign of our sorrow and repentance for sins.

— Adapted from The United Methodist Book of Worship

Ash Wednesday

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Genesis 3:19

Ash Wednesday Prayer

The truth can be hard, Lord.  It is true that I have been formed out of the dust of the earth.  It is true that I live only because your holy breath has filled my empty lungs.  I have life from you and from you alone.  Every day I live is an undeserved gift from you.  Help me to take up my cross and follow you.  The crosses I carry are not mere problems to solve, the crosses I take up are opportunities to patiently and joyfully present my life as living sacrifice.  Teach me the limits of my own existence and fill me with your limitless power.  Amen.

Ash Wednesday Meditation

In prayer we seek God’s voice and allow God’s word to penetrate our fear and resistance so that we can begin to hear what God wants us to know.  And what God wants us to know is that before we think or do or accomplish anything, before we have much money or little money, the deepest truth of our human identity is this: “You are my beloved son.  You are my beloved daughter.  With you I am well pleased.”  When we can claim this truth as true for us, then we also see that it is true for all other people.  God is well pleased with us, and so we are free to approach all people, the rich or the poor, in the freedom of God’s love.. As our prayer deepens into a constant awareness of God’s goodness, the spirit of gratitude grows within us.  Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have the gifts to be received and shared.