Joel 2:1–2, 12–17, Psalm 51:1–17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
Today is Ash Wednesday. I’ve said some of these things before, but I feel I need to in part because the church calendar is still so unfamiliar to me. I didn’t grow up acknowledging Ash Wednesday at all, and Lent was to me a Catholic thing, like a second New Year’s Resolution. At the Christian University I attended, however, I heard them speak plainly about what Ash Wednesday and Lent is.
Fasting, and especially fasting leading up to Easter has been part of the church’s rhythm since the beginning. Pharisees asked Jesus why his disciples weren’t fasting and he told them that they cannot fast while the bridegroom is there, but the time will come when the bridegroom must leave. Easter is a big deal in the church, big enough I’d say to spend the 40 days in advance preparing for and thinking on it.
I’m glad, being a newcomer, that the readings for today have passages like “rend your heart, not your clothes,” “create in me a clean heart,” and the excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount about not drawing attention to yourself in giving, praying, or fasting.
Ash Wednesday and Lent are not about showing off your piety. On the contrary, you are dust and to dust you will return. The ash is a physical reminder of our mortality and ought to make us humble not prideful. So I admit to feeling odd about having a sign on my forehead, as if preaching to all the world. I don’t know if others feel this in different communities, but this is the tension that I sit in each year.
