Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the period of 40 days which leads up to Easter. 40 is a significant number in the Bible, with the Israelites spending 40 years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land, and the 40 days of Lent reflects the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert before the start of His public ministry. This year, Lent starts on 1st March and ends on Maundy Thursday, 13th April (Sundays are excluded from the period of Lent.) In many churches, a service is held on Ash Wednesday, when the mark of the cross is put on every believer in ashes, to symbolise repentance from sin and to remind us of our human mortality, encouraging us to focus on spiritual matters connected with eternity.
The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, doing penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. As such, it’s a human way of focussing our attention on doing away with sin (the ‘putting to death the earthly nature’ discussed yesterday.) There is nothing particularly ‘special’ about the period itself, but as fallible people prone to forget, it is often helpful to have something external which reminds us of eternal values.
Over this period, we will be looking at the things we need to leave behind and the life of Christ we need to embrace. Michael Card reminds us,
“When we say ‘no’ to the things of the world
We open our hearts to the love of the Lord and
It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.’ (‘Things We Leave Behind,’ Michael Card)
I’m no great fan of New Year’s resolutions or even ‘giving up things for Lent’, largely because I know how easy it is for me to fall into legalistic traps that either make me feel smug and self-righteous when I’m successful or (more frequently!) despondent and despairing when I fail. However, self-examination is important in spiritual growth (see Ps 139:23-24, 2 Cor 13:5), so our Lenten studies are designed to focus our attention on both repentance and spiritual growth.