Ash Wednesday
by GinafishThe first day of the lent season.
“Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return” [Genesis 3:19]
I didn’t know about Ash Wednesday until I was about 27 and someone came to work with the black smudge. I wasn’t particularly curious at the time.
Then studying the Presbyterian Church more, joining, and married to someone on his way to being a pastor at a Presbo church, leads me to study even more.
From http://www.wf-f.org/AshWed.html
Putting ashes on our heads as a form of penitence is a practice inherited from Jewish tradition. In Old Testament times, fast days expressed sorrow for sins and the desire to make atonement to the Father. Ashes, for Jews and Christians alike, are a sign of repentance, sorrow, and mourning. The King of Nineveh believed the prophecy of Jonah and fasted forty days wearing sackcloth and sitting in ashes to save the city, and ordered the people to do so, too [Jonah 3:4-10]. Jeremiah calls Israel to “wallow in ashes” of repentance [Jeremiah 6:26]. Abraham speaks of being unworthy to speak with God because he is “but dust and ashes” [Gen 2:7] — being man, he is created from dust. Jesus also refers to this symbol in Matthew 11:21, “Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
Well, I don’t have any sackcloths, and I’m awful at fasting, but I very much look forward to going to an Ash Wednesday service tonight.
