About The Lenten Season
(excerpts from “A Baptist View of the Imposition of Ashes” Alfred Street Baptist Church website https://www.alfredstreet.org/lent/)
Lent was first celebrated during the 4th century and began with only a few days before Easter . The early church would baptize converts to Christianity — all those who believed on the name of the Lord — on Easter Sunday only . With time, Lent was extended to several weeks . The forty days were symbolic of Jesus’s preparation and temptation by Satan in the wilderness after His baptism and before the beginning of His ministry . It was a time of purification and separation . Lent became known as the forty-day period before Easter and begins on Ash Wednesday . Sundays are not counted in the forty days because the day commemorates the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ . Since early biblical times, ashes have been symbolic of repentance (turning away from sin and turning to God) or of grief in mourning . The ashes were used to make a sign of the cross on the forehead of believers from the charred remains of the palm branches used on Palm Sunday the year before . This extended period of forty days became a time of prayer and fasting as well as a time of self-examination and inner reflection for the purpose of repentance . As we celebrate Lent, we should remember that what we give up for a short period of time cannot prepare us for how God expects us to live our lives daily in relationship with Him . Perhaps that is why after the Reformation, the discipline of fasting became unpopular . Yet, there were those church fathers and leaders who still wanted to preserve Lent as a time of self-sacrifice; thus, people were encouraged to give up something they enjoyed during Lent . We suggest during this season of Lent to forget about giving up trivial things . Instead, take on a newfound attitude to live in accordance with God’s Word . No amount of fasting, abstaining from physical pleasures or any other form of self-denial can purify us . Our cleansing can only come from the atoning blood of Jesus who sacrificed His life for our many sins . Get to know Jesus intimately for yourself during this sacred time . Let the Holy Spirit convert your mind daily and lead you to do and think the things that are pleasing in His sight . Pray, repent, and let God work in you and to do His good pleasure.
The distribution of ashes
Although not biblically commanded, the distribution of ashes is biblically supported, (as is the case with the celebration of Christmas). In the Bible, mourning and repentance were often marked by the wearing of sackcloth and ashes. Job wore ashes when he repented before God (Job 42:6); Jeremiah called Israel to wear ashes as they repented of their sin (Jer. 6:26); Daniel attached ashes to his fasting (Daniel (9:3); Jesus chastised the cities of Bethsaida and Chorazin for not repenting with ashes (Matthew 11:21, Luke 10:13), and in Ezekiel 9:4 a messenger of God is commanded to mark the foreheads of those who were repenting before the Lord.
