Today is the one day of the year that you are somewhat likely to see someone at work, school, or walking down the street or in the store with a big cross of ashes on their forehead. Why is that? It's because today is the Christian holy day known as Ash Wednesday.
What is Ash Wednesday? Well, for starters, it's the day that kicks off the season of Lent for many liturgical based Christian churches. Every year, on the Wednesday that comes 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, the Christian church enters the season of Lent. Over the next few days, I'll further explain a bit about this season of the church year.
But what is Ash Wednesday, and why the ashes? Well, it all begins with how God was at work when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. In that action, Jesus (being both the one true God and fully human at the same time) died with the sin and sins of the entire world. All the sin and sins of the world died with Him as He carried them into death. And then, in rising back to life, Jesus declared Himself to be more powerful than our sin and even death itself.
So first of all, Ash Wednesday is a reminder that God has dealt with our sin. In several places in the Bible, God speaks of Himself as a consuming fire, and as a refining fire. Basically, what gets consumed in God's presence is all that is sinful. Sin is burned away and reduced to ash when it comes before the God who calls Himself a consuming fire.
As Christians, we understand that God has consumed our sin in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. In that action, our sin has been consumed, as though it is now ashes in the sight of God. Therefore, the ashes that many Christians wear on their foreheads today is a mark of our full and complete forgiveness in the sight of God, because of Jesus and the cross.
That's ultimately the meaning of the cross of ashes. The person who wears them is declaring to the world that they are one whose sins are as ashes in the sight of God. By wearing those ashes in the shape of the cross, they are also declaring that God has done this for them through Jesus and the cross, and that they are forgiven sinners because of that loving action.
What is Ash Wednesday? Well, for starters, it's the day that kicks off the season of Lent for many liturgical based Christian churches. Every year, on the Wednesday that comes 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, the Christian church enters the season of Lent. Over the next few days, I'll further explain a bit about this season of the church year.
But what is Ash Wednesday, and why the ashes? Well, it all begins with how God was at work when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. In that action, Jesus (being both the one true God and fully human at the same time) died with the sin and sins of the entire world. All the sin and sins of the world died with Him as He carried them into death. And then, in rising back to life, Jesus declared Himself to be more powerful than our sin and even death itself.
So first of all, Ash Wednesday is a reminder that God has dealt with our sin. In several places in the Bible, God speaks of Himself as a consuming fire, and as a refining fire. Basically, what gets consumed in God's presence is all that is sinful. Sin is burned away and reduced to ash when it comes before the God who calls Himself a consuming fire.
As Christians, we understand that God has consumed our sin in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. In that action, our sin has been consumed, as though it is now ashes in the sight of God. Therefore, the ashes that many Christians wear on their foreheads today is a mark of our full and complete forgiveness in the sight of God, because of Jesus and the cross.
That's ultimately the meaning of the cross of ashes. The person who wears them is declaring to the world that they are one whose sins are as ashes in the sight of God. By wearing those ashes in the shape of the cross, they are also declaring that God has done this for them through Jesus and the cross, and that they are forgiven sinners because of that loving action.
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