Ash Wednesday and Lent 2020

Wednesday, February 26, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent. We will have a 7:00 P.M. Worship service which will include the imposition of ashes for any who would like to come forward to receive it.

“Ashes have a long history in biblical and church traditions.

• In Scripture ashes or dust symbolize frailty or death (Gen. 18:27), sadness or mourning (Esther 4:3), judgment (Lam. 3:16), and repentance (Jon. 3:6).

• Some traditions also have considered ash a purifying or cleansing agent. All these images are caught up in the church’s use of ashes as a symbol appropriate for Lent.

…The ashes, which often are the burnt residue of the previous year’s palms from Palm Sunday, are often mixed with a little water and carried in a small dish. As the leader goes from worshiper to worshiper, or as worshipers come forward, the leader dips a finger in the moist ash and makes a cross on each person’s forehead (the “imposition,” [meaning “to put or place”]), saying words such as “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” or, “Consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Jesus Christ.”

—From The Worship Sourcebook, © 2004, CRC Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 541-542