ASH Wednesday
Notes
Transcript
Opening/Introduction
Opening/Introduction
Lent is a season of facing our sin, emptying ourselves of unnecessary comforts, and directing our desires towards our Savior. The season traditionally begins with a reminder of our sinful state. In verses 14–19, God explains the curses and consequences of the entrance of sin into the world. We are not without hope, but we cannot rush to an empty hope without recognition of the state that requires it. Childbearing becomes painful (v. 16), the ground becomes harder to work (vv. 17–18), and humans will die, returning to the earth that they were made from (v. 19).
Traditionally, ashes are either sprinkled on congregant’s foreheads or used to make a cross in the same place. This mark is often accompanied with a proclamation coming from this passage: “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (v. 19). It serves as a reminder of sin’s deadly consequences and our fragile and mortal nature. These ashes have also often been made from the palm branches used in the previous year’s Palm Sunday, serving as another reminder of the death and destruction that sin caused to fall over the entire world. Whether you practice this tradition or not, use a small pot of ashes as a physical representation of this reminder.
Traditionally, ashes are either sprinkled on congregant’s foreheads or used to make a cross in the same place. This mark is often accompanied with a proclamation coming from this passage: “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (v. 19). It serves as a reminder of sin’s deadly consequences and our fragile and mortal nature. These ashes have also often been made from the palm branches used in the previous year’s Palm Sunday, serving as another reminder of the death and destruction that sin caused to fall over the entire world. Whether you practice this tradition or not, use a small pot of ashes as a physical representation of this reminder.
Devotional
Devotional
Sin did not just affect human relationships but the entire earth(v.17).Things like natural disasters and disease are evidence of the fallenness of all of creation. For decades, corporations carelessly released toxic chemicals or waste into the environment, unaware of just how harmful it could become. In one small town in West Virginia, a chemical plant’s waste disposals have had devastating effects on the community—the fish and local livestock aren’t safe to eat, and people are developing cancers (Kent Garber, “A Small Town’s Battle with Dioxin Pollution,” U.S. News and World Report, April 23, 2010, https://www.usnews.com/news/energy/articles/2010/04/23/a-small-towns-battle- with-dioxin-pollution). We are now seeing the effects of these supposedly small disposals—entire river systems are destroyed, animal species go extinct, and our own food supplies can be impacted. Sin is the same way—even a single act had ripple effects for the entirety of humankind. Even now, our “smallest” of sins can have a chain effect that we never anticipate or intend. A broken world magnifies it exponentially.
Lent, not unlike Advent, is a season of anticipation. But to put yourself in to a posture of real anticipation requires that you know the stakes. What are you anticipating? What will it do for you? The anticipation a child feels before Christmas isn’t necessarily one of reverent anticipation of the coming Savior. The stakes are pretty low—the quality of presents, the type of cookies baked, the amount of time the family takes reading the Christmas story before gifts can be opened. If Lent is simply a time of anticipating the end of a fast or the chocolates in an Easter basket, then the stakes are pretty low as well. Ash Wednesday reminds us that the stakes are actually incredibly high—life and death.
Even in a passage that firmly faces us with our sin, there is enough hope to spark the reverent anticipation that should characterize the entire Lenten season. While the woman is cursed with pain in childbirth (v. 16), verse 15 promises that the woman’s offspring will “crush” the serpent and have final victory. “After the fall, childbirth becomes the means by which the snake is defeated and the blessing restored. The pain of every birth is a reminder of the hope that lies in God’s promise. Birth pangs are not merely a reminder of the futility of the fall; they are a sign of an impending joy” (David E. Garland and Tremper Longman III, eds., Genesis-Leviticus, Expositor’s Bible Commentary 1 [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009], 91).
Even in a passage that firmly faces us with our sin, there is enough hope to spark the reverent anticipation that should characterize the entire Lenten season. While the woman is cursed with pain in childbirth (v. 16), verse 15 promises that the woman’s offspring will “crush” the serpent and have final victory. “After the fall, childbirth becomes the means by which the snake is defeated and the blessing restored. The pain of every birth is a reminder of the hope that lies in God’s promise. Birth pangs are not merely a reminder of the futility of the fall; they are a sign of an impending joy” (David E. Garland and Tremper Longman III, eds., Genesis-Leviticus, Expositor’s Bible Commentary 1 [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009], 91).
During this time of the Lenten season I pray that God will draw our minds to something that he wants to birth in us.
What God wants to do in our lives has the potential to show during this time of the year when we intentionally take time to posture our hearts in a way to hear from Jesus in a new way.
This season is more that just about what food we are going to give up and the anticipation of being able to eat that food again, but to show us how God is birthing redemption for his creation in our lives.