When I was a boy, the ashes on my Roman Catholic friends puzzled me.
My Protestant friends wrote them off as one of the "Weird" things Catholics do.
A few years later, I discovered ashes and Lent in the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Today is Ash Wednesday, and reading today's article may make you see ashes differently.
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Ashes have a long history in the Bible before Ash Wednesday and Lent.
Abraham* (1996-1821 BC) was the first to use the term: And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Genesis 18:27
An asterisk* after a name means that person is in SPIRITUAL LIVES.
The idea here is how great the gap is between man and God. Job* (1650-1440BC), put it like this: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. -Job 42:5-6
Jesus* (4BC-30AD) recognized the role of ashes in repentance when he said: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. – Luke 10:13
We see no more ashes in the New Testament or the early church. Of course, there was little writing in those early days because few people could read, and fewer wrote to a large audience.
Ashes have long been associated with the 40 days preceding Easter, now known as Lent, but the emphasis was on fasting in the earliest times. This was inspired by Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the wilderness when the devil tempted him.
In a letter to Pope St. Victor (140-160?-199), St. Irenaeus (c. 130 - 202) mentioned a dispute about the number of days for the pre-Easter fast and suggested the fast had begun. Irenaeus* noted that such “variation in observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers." This would place it early in the second century, perhaps even the first.
However, this practice of a 40-day fast before Easter was not formalized in the Western Church until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The purpose of the fast was to repent of sin and live a holy life. Later, the fast was represented by "giving up something" to honor Jesus* The imposition of ashes came later:
Giving ashes as a general sign of penance began about 600 years later. The earliest known record of an “Ash Wednesday” comes from Ælfric the Homilist (c955-1010) circa 991 A.D.:
“In the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.”
By the end of the 10th century, it was customary in Western Europe for the faithful to receive ashes on the first day of lent. In 1091 A.D., Pope Urban II, at the Synod of Benevento, ordered the custom extended to the Church in Rome and all places.
The custom of accompanying the imposition of ashes with saying “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” is traditionally credited to Pope Gregory I the Great (c540-604). Taken from the words spoken to Adam* (4004-3074BC) and Eve* (4004 - ? BC) after the Fall of man, it reminds us of our sinfulness and mortality.
The practice of Lent was worldwide until the Protestant Reformation when Luther* (1483-1546), Cranmer* (1489-1556) and even John Wesley (1703-1791) continued to honor it, but others, like John Calvin* (1509-1564) and the Baptists, did not.
Reformed Churches
John Calvin, the principal figure in the development of Reformed theology, critiqued the practice of Lent in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as a "superstitious observance," and observed that "Christ did not fast repeatedly (which he must have done had he meant to lay down a law for an anniversary fast), but once only, when preparing for the promulgation of the gospel."[Similarly, leading Reformed divines such as Samuel Rutherford (!600-1661) rejected Lent.[
The Westminster Assembly and Scottish Parlementn took the position that "[t]here is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath," and approves of fasting specifically "upon special emergent occasions." Reformed churches have historically not observed Lent.[
As a boy, I was puzzled when I saw the ashes on the foreheads of my Catholic friends, but I knew Catholics did "weird" things in the eyes of my Pentecostal parents. When I joined the Protestant Episcopal Church as a young man, some of those "weird" things took on new meanings, particularly the lenten traditions of honoring the season by omitting "hallelujahs" during the service.
More visible was the stripping of the altar of its gold—indeed, all the gold was draped, and the stained glass windows were covered. All this was after I had received the ashes as the season began. All of this communicated a reverend solemnity each week that I had not seen before.
On Easter Sunday, the windows and gold on the altar were undraped, the red and white robed choir processed in, folling a gold cross with a lily attached. As they came in they sang,
'Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once, upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss, Alleluia!
As they did, the hair on the back of my head stood up. I had never seen anything so glorious!
And then our Rector, David Rhinelander King (1929-1987) announced in his powerful voice:
He is risen, as He said!
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Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once, upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss, Alleluia!
Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly king, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save, Alleluia!
But the pains which He endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation hath procured, Alleluia!
Now above the sky He’s king, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing, Alleluia!
Sing we to our God above, Alleluia!
Praise eternal as His love, Alleluia!
Praise Him, all you heavenly host, Alleluia!
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! 1,115
Stanzas 1–3 took their current form in The Compleat Psalmist, by John Arnold (London: 1749). Stanza 4 is by Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740, alt.
About the image/
Ashes imposed on the forehead of a Christian on Ash Wednesday.
Oxh973 - Own work by Jennifer Balaska
Public Domain
File:Crossofashes.jpg
Created: 22 February 2012
Uploaded: 26 February 2009
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