Ash Wednesday: Entering the Desert With Jesus
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Tomorrow, we move into the season of Lent.
The celebration of Shrove Tuesday has passed. The beads are packed away, the last pancakes eaten, and now the mood shifts. The Church grows quiet. We begin a season of preparation.
As Christians, we believe that the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the most important event in all of history. God, in His great love, sent His only Son to redeem us from our sins and restore us to Himself.
Just as Advent prepares us for the birth of Christ, Lent prepares us for Easter.
Lent is a pilgrimage. We walk with Christ through His forty days in the wilderness. We follow Him to the cross. We wait at the tomb. And finally, we rejoice in His glorious resurrection on Easter Day.
This journey begins with a solemn and beautiful service: Ash Wednesday
The Meaning of Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wednesday, the Body of Christ gathers to enter Lent together. It is a corporate turning, a moment when we acknowledge our mortality and our need for mercy.
Throughout Scripture, repentance is marked by sackcloth and ashes. In the Bible, ashes symbolize humility, grief over sin, and a return to God.
During the Ash Wednesday service, ashes are placed on the forehead of each believer in the shape of a cross.
As they are imposed, we hear the words:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)
These are the words spoken to Adam and Eve after the Fall, a reminder that sin brought death into the world. They also remind us that we, too, have “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
And yet the ashes are placed in the shape of a cross.
Even in repentance, there is hope.
Why Ashes?
Throughout Scripture, ashes are a sign of grief, humility, and repentance.
Job repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6).
Daniel prayed in sackcloth and ashes (Daniel 9:3).
When Jonah preached to Nineveh, the people covered themselves in ashes as they turned back to God (Jonah 3:6).
Ashes symbolize sorrow for sin, and hope in God’s mercy.
In the early Church, ashes were placed on the heads of public penitents who were preparing to be restored to communion at Easter. Over time, the practice extended to the whole Church. The message became clear: we all stand in need of grace.
No one enters Lent on their own merit. We come as sinners in need of mercy.
A Day of Fasting & Repentance
Ash Wednesday is one of the two primary fast days of the Church year, the other being Good Friday. It marks the beginning of our Lenten discipline.
We fast not as a hollow ritual, but as a way of training our hearts. By denying ourselves, we learn to hunger for Christ.
If you are observing a fast today, let it be accompanied by prayer. When you feel hunger, let it prompt you to turn your thoughts toward God. Offer your discomfort to Him. Allow it to remind you that He alone satisfies.
How to Observe Ash Wednesday at Home
Lent is both personal and communal. While we gather with the Church, we also carry its rhythms into our homes. Here are meaningful ways to mark this day with your family:
1. Attend an Ash Wednesday Service
Gather with your church family. Receive the ashes. Enter Lent together.
2. Do a Family Devotion & Burn Your Sins
After dinner or before bed, do the Ash Wednesday devotion. After the devotion, hand each family member a small slip of paper and a pen. Ask everyone, children included, to prayerfully consider an area of weakness in their lives where they need God’s help.
Model this by sharing your own weakness and writing it down.
Place the slips into an earthenware vessel and carefully burn them (or throw them into a fireplace or outdoor fire pit). As they burn, explain that just as the paper is reduced to ashes and no longer recognizable, so our sins are forgiven and remembered no more when we confess them to Christ.
This is a powerful and tangible reminder of grace.
3. Make Pretzels
The pretzel is considered one of the oldest Christian foods. Originating in Europe, it was created by monks to accommodate the Lenten fast.
Made with only flour, water, and salt, it reflects the simplicity of the season. Its twisted shape resembles arms crossed in prayer, a fitting symbol for Lent.
(The recipe is found at the end of the article.)
4. Begin Your Lenten Fast
Traditionally, nothing is eaten on Ash Wednesday. However, this should not be required of children.
If a total fast is not possible, consider smaller meals and abstaining from meat. Whatever form your fast takes, let it be intentional.
5. Visibly Mark the Season in Your Home
Make your home reflect the Church calendar.
Remove flowers and bright decorations.
Take down signs of spring so that Easter will feel all the more glorious when it arrives.
6. Create a Lenten Door Display
Have your children gather bare twigs and branches. Tie them together with purple fabric and hang them on your front door.
This stark and beautiful arrangement is a dramatic reminder that we have entered a sacred time, a kairos moment, in the Church year.
(Here’s the tutorial.)
7. Display “Vacare Deo”
Create a simple sign with the Latin phrase Vacare Deo, meaning “to empty oneself for God.”
Place it somewhere visible as a daily reminder of the purpose of this season.
8. Make an Alms Box
Make an alms container and place it in a prominent location.
A traditional phrase to attach is:
“The fasts of the rich are the feasts of the poor.”
Encourage everyone to contribute throughout Lent. Let your fasting become someone else’s blessing.
9. Say Goodbye to the Alleluias
Because we refrain from saying “Alleluia” during Lent, take time to say goodbye to it.
Have your children write “Alleluia” on a board. Decorate it with flowers. Then place it in a drawer, chest, or closet until Easter morning.
The absence will make its return all the sweeter.
10. Begin Spring Cleaning
Let your physical cleaning mirror your spiritual work. As you declutter and scrub, pray that God would cleanse your heart as well.
The Invitation of Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is not meant to weigh us down.
It is an invitation.
An invitation to humility.
An invitation to repentance.
An invitation to renewal.
We begin with ashes.
We end with resurrection.
Today, we step into the wilderness with Jesus.
May this Lent shape us, refine us, and draw us ever closer to Him.
Blessed Lent, dear friends. Let us walk this pilgrimage together!
the recipe -
Quick and Easy Pretzels
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon honey or sugar
1 1⁄2 cups lukewarm water (100-110 degrees)
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
Course or kosher salt
1 egg, beaten
Add the honey to the water; sprinkle in the yeast and stir until
dissolved. Add 1 teaspoon of salt. Blend in the flour, and knead the
dough until smooth.
Cut the dough into pieces. Roll them into ropes and twist into pret-
zel shapes. You can make small pretzels with thin ropes, or large
ones with fat ropes, but remember that to cook at the same rate,
your pretzels need to be the same size.
Place the pretzels on lightly greased cookie sheets. Brush them with
beaten egg. Sprinkle with course salt.
Bake at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, until the pretzels are golden
brown.
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