Ash Wednesday
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19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
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12 “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
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10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. -
Personal
As we begin 40 days of Lent our readings points us to prayer and a consideration of our mortality. And it’s a good place to start. Store up for yourself treasure in heaven Jesus says just after he had taught them the Lords prayer. The prophet Joel also cries out, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and mourning.’
In this Lenten season, let's encourage each-other in prayer and remembrance that even though ‘eternity is written on our hearts,’ this earthly frame will one day return to dust.
Let us answer our readings by being bold in prayer, if you make lent promises make them ones that will draw us closer to our Lord Jesus who took 40 days fasting in the wilderness, to rebuke the devil; and to prepare for his ministry.
On Ash Wednesday we begin 40 days of commitment to our Lord Jesus, to practice what he did in the wilderness. Lent is an excellent way to prepare for Easter and the death and resurrection of the Christ.
Ever since the 6th Century, Ash Wed launches lent, 40 days before Easter (excluding Sundays).
For the church the Easter journey begins here remembering (strangely) that I am dust and to dust I will return. – remembering – that I will die! A strange starting place – ashes start the season of Lent.
But why should I think of my death when all around me yells LIFE and life to the full…. And didn’t Jesus promise ‘I have come that you may have life in abundance’ (John 10:10)?
Why should my everyday life be interrupted by the reminder that one day I will die?
But Matthew 6v19 challenges us to store up treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is your heart will be also.
But there is more!!
On Ash Wednesday, by remembering or thinking of my death makes me remember the death my Lord. And more, that He died for me and we also remember this at the Lord’s Table (Holy Communion). The prophet Joel says return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and mourning, return to the Lord for he is gracious and merciful….abounding in steadfast love.’ My death will be the end of this perishable body - dust to dust but that will lead to a glorious resurrection – all because of the death Jesus died for me.
Hear the Easter story again this year and see therein the horror of his death, the death I should have died. How unjust is that!
Today I am remembering in ashes my death.
In looking at our death – and the ashes we can pray the words of the psalmist in Psalm 51 ‘Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me, give me again the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your gracious spirit.’
Remember we are mortal even in the busyness of life, today we choose to remember our death and Jesus’ death and by his grace the first is lessened by the magnitude of the second.
