Ashes

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:1)

This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday where we took a moment from our busy lives and worshipped in the evening to get some ashes on our foreheads in the shape of a cross.  Throughout the whole day on Wednesday, as I was our doing some errands, I was amazed to see how many people around Tucson that already had ashes on their foreheads.  I went to Fry’s and there were women and men who had already been marked with the sign of the cross.  I went to the gym and sure enough… working out on the elliptical there were people with the sign of the cross on their foreheads.  My guess is that we have a pretty good group of Roman Catholics in our area that went to early Mass. 

I wonder how many Lutherans went home after the Ash Wednesday service to clean their foreheads right away.   Did you?  Now, I know we don’t get the mark of the sign of the cross on our foreheads for the world to see for our recognition.  We do, however, want others see  in our faces and in our lives that Jesus is our rescue from sin and our certain hope today and for all eternity. 

We do want to acknowledge “the why “we do the ashes in the first place.  Well, it is the beginning of the season of penitence or repentance where we are reminded of our sinful natures.  We all sin even though we are forgiven.   The ashes symbolize a cleansing and renewal replacing the water of our baptism for the cross.  As we received those ashes it was said, “Dust you are and to dust you shall return.”  These ashes also symbolize our need to repent, confess our sins, to return to God through repentance.  

We also do this by taking on a challenge or discipline during the Lenten 40 days before Easter to help us focus on this repentance.  In the scripture I chose today Jesus reminds us that when we do disciplines like this we should be as authentic as possible and not flaunt our accomplishments or our disciplines to get credit or acknowledgment for them.  This repentance is between you and God.  It is to remind us to God’s forgiveness, patience, grace, and love.  We need to face our sins and see God’s grace!

I challenge you to attend the Wednesday night services through Lent to help you absorb the power of these 40 days.  Without the discipline… this is just another 40 days.  Let’s use the chance to grow our faith and challenge ourselves to return to God.  AMEN