Sermonette: March 7, 2022

This week begins the portion of the church calendar that separates Christianity from all other religions, Easter. As a prelude, a time for preparation, for nearly all Christian denominations to observe the season of Lent. The season of Lent lasts for 40 days and begins on Ash Wednesday. But if you were to count the actual days on your calendar from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday you would find there are 44 days. The answer to this is that as Sunday is a day of worship, it is not counted as a day of preparation. So, taking the days of this week, Wednesday through Saturday is four days, add in six weeks of six days each and you have your 40 days. Why 40 days? There are a number of thoughts regarding this but the most prevalent is that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism. There are a number of scriptural references to the number 40 as well.

One of the traditions of Ash Wednesday is having ashes in the shape of a cross put on our foreheads. Palm leaves are saved from the previous year and burned. Oil is poured into these ashes so the ash will remain on our skin until washed off. Just as the season of Advent, there is no direct command in our scriptures to observe Lent but this season is very important to Christians. The bible has a number of references to ashes beginning in the first book, Genesis. We are told that God formed Adam from dust, and breathed a life giving breath into him to turn him from dust to human. In chapter three of Genesis, God told Adam from dust you came and to dust you return. Later on in the book of Job, as a showing of humility and mourning Job poured ashes over his head. When Job's friends came to visit him in his time of trial, when they saw him, they wept and “threw dust in the air upon their heads” as a sign of their support for him in his troubles. Early on, Christians would have ashes sprinkled on their bodies as a sign of repentance. Around the 10th or early 11th century, people began using ashes to make the sign of the cross upon their foreheads as a sign of their repentance and requesting forgiveness of their sins. This practice was at first only in the Catholic church but as of late, a number of Protest churches have begun doing so as well.

In a very small nutshell, that is an historical basis for the observance of Ash Wednesday. What is important to us today is that we think of not only Ash Wednesday as a day to perform a ritual, but ponder deeply what the seasons of Lent and Easter mean to us as a Christian people. There are a number of things of course, but what immediately comes to mind is repentance and humility. Regardless of who we are; rich or poor, young or old, male or female, we will all die some day. Regardless of our station in our earthly life, the truth for each and every one of us is from dust we began and to dust we will return. Let us use this season of Lent as a time to review our relationship with God. I pray that we all humbly remember the death of Jesus Christ and joyously celebrate his resurrection. Blessings to all.