The season of Lent begins with a very special worship on Ash Wednesday. This beautiful evening service begins the Lenten season of reflection, prayer, and preparation as we hear the words from Genesis 3:19, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ashes, a sign of mourning and repentance, are placed on our foreheads as a reminder of our mortality, but the ashes are in the shape of a cross, a sign of promise, and life, and hope.
Ash Wednesday—along with the whole season of Lent—calls us to reflect and remember the precious gift of life and love that God has given us in creation and community and to re-center our thoughts and spirit on what truly matters. As we gather around the communion table in worship on Ash Wednesday, we see our neighbors with the same smudged cross on their heads, recall that our mortality is joined forever in Christ, and remember that together we share the joy of life with all of God’s world.