WED // FEB 18 // 6:30 AM

On Ash Wednesday, we will host an Ash Wednesday service in our main sanctuary. In that service, we will be doing something that we introduced a few years ago: The Imposition of the Ashes.

Here’s what to expect: At the end of our worship service, we will ask each of you to come up and receive the ashes. One of us will say to you, Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We will then take some ash and place it on your forehead in the shape of the cross. 

This is a worship tradition practiced by a wide variety of Christians across multiple denominations, including many Presbyterian and Reformed traditions. We know this is something relatively new to Joy, so here’s a quick explanation: 

Lent is a 40-day period that begins on Ash Wednesday, leading up to Good Friday, and concluding on Easter Sunday. It is a liturgical season in which Christians focus on fasting and repentance. 

Why the ashes? Throughout the Bible, covering oneself with ashes was a common practice of repentance: Job repents in sackcloth and ashes at the end of the book (Job 42:6), Jeremiah calls for Israel to repent by rolling in ashes (Jeremiah 6:26), and Jesus Himself alludes to this practice in Matthew 11:21. 

Ashes also remind us that our lives are like dust. God tells Adam, immediately after the fall: Dust you are, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19). Dust and ashes often go together, symbolizing humility before God as frail and broken creatures in need of God’s help: For instance, Hannah in 1 Samuel declares that God raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor (1 Sam 2:8). 

By placing ashes on our foreheads, we remind ourselves that we are God’s creatures, finite and broken by sin, in need of His mercy. By placing the ashes in the shape of a cross, we also remind ourselves of what God did on our behalf: He became dust like us in Jesus Christ, and then died on the cross to redeem us from sin and death. 

As the Reformed pastor Sinclair Ferguson puts it, Ash Wednesday is an outward sign of what should also be inward repentance. By wearing the cross on our foreheads all day, we are marking ourselves as entering into a period of self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial. 

So join us this Ash Wednesday, February 18th at 6:30 AM – first thing in the morning – to worship together and to receive the imposition of the ashes as one body as we head out into the world, marked as followers of Christ, abiding in Him. 

We know that many of you have children to drop off at school. That’s okay! You can either bring your child to the service or come to church after dropping them off at school. The pastoral staff will be available throughout the day, 9:30 AM through 12:30 PM, in the sanctuary (70 West Ivy Lane) for those who cannot make the service but would like ashes imposed.