Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. The first day of a seven-week journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem, where he will brutally die from false accusations. Lent ends on Easter Sunday, March 31, Jesus's resurrection from death, but let’s not rush there quite yet.
Lent is a time for a slower walk with Jesus.
Eating together on Ash Wednesday
Immanuel’s Ash Wednesday traditions remind us that simplicity and ease are sacred. Folks gather on Ash Wednesday about 6:00 p.m. for a no-frills soup and sandwich meal around tables in the fellowship hall. The beauty of this meal is its modesty which does not demand excessive preparation or display, yet fulfills the purpose of nourishment for our bellies and wonderful conversations at the end of a long day.
After dinner, we do the dishes and bring out the hymnals. Around 7 p.m. singing begins along with the reading of scriptures, prayer together, receiving an offering that will be sent into our community, applying ashes to foreheads, and sharing a second meal together: holy communion.
We are going to die.
Ashes are marked on foreheads as a smudgy cross while hearing, “From dust you were formed, and to dust you will return.” This is a reminder that the living do not live forever. One day we will die. Death is an uncomfortable truth that we avoid for obvious reasons as we buzz through our days expecting tomorrow to be a guarantee.
“From dust to dust. From ashes to ashes. From the ground, you were formed, and to the ground, you are being returned.” I have spoken these final words of committal at gravesides in recent weeks. There is a sense of rest when committing lifeless bodies back to the ground from which they were lovingly formed by God. The struggle to live has ceased for burial bodies.
Maybe the ashes we receive and the Lenten season is a practice session to stop our efforts to avoid dying and face it head on by walking toward Jerusalem along side Jesus with a cross for our own crucifixion too. Walking toward death with Jesus is undying hope that nothing can separate us from God’s love or the love of deceased loved ones. Not even death.
Nothing Complicated
This Lenten season, refuse to live like you will never die. With the reminder of your limited life in the form of an ashy cross on your forehead, return to and live into God’s love with hope, simplicity and ease. Nothing complicated. I’ve heard that less is more.
Like a no-frills meal shared together on an Ash Wednesday.
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