Beauty for Lenten Ashes

Keep your eyes unwaveringly on Jesus during Lent.
Beauty for Lenten Ashes

Lent is one of the most ancient practices of the church, one that has avoided any interest from greeting card companies—and many Christians. For unlike the nostalgia and wonder we experience at Christmas, or the victory we celebrate at Easter, we don't quite know how to observe Lent.

It doesn't look like very much fun, the Lenten season, certainly not worthy of sending cards to loved ones. It's easy for us to think, You mean I have to give up something I enjoy for 40 days? In winter, when the sun is elusively cloaked behind the clouds, along with my spirits? No thanks, I'll see you at Easter.

But when we simply show up at Easter, we miss a big part of the story of salvation. We miss the opportunity to see just how far Jesus dug into the soil of our humanity. We don't understand the sin and death Jesus crushed when he conquered the grave. And we can't view ourselves as we truly are, trapped in sin without hope except for the grace of Jesus.

During Lent, we have the opportunity to look at our own brokenness and invite Jesus to meet us there. But we don't just look inward during this season. We also have the chance to look upward, forward, and outward, keeping our eyes unwaveringly on Jesus as we take part in this stark—but always rich—40-day observance.

Look Upward

On Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the 40 days of Lent, the liturgy says, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It's a jarring reminder in a world that says, "Have as much fun as you can now, and worry about the consequences later." Lent lets us dwell in this reality: Even with Christ, we still have immense capacity for sin. We are all needy and crave mercy because our days on this earth will not last long.

But we certainly don't stand alone during Lent, crippled by the weight of our mortality and our individual and corporate sin. We come to understand human depravity over these 40 days, but it should never leave us hopeless. This leads to unhealthy introspection, which turns us against ourselves, strangling our self-worth and ability to see God and others.

Instead, as we look inward during Lent, examining our hearts and confessing our weaknesses, we also look upward. In our sin, we search for a savior. We need rescue from our brokenness because we're confident that, even when we try, we can't do it on our own.

In his book Why Sin Matters, psychologist and author Mark McMinn says, "Homecoming is possible only after we discover that we have wandered off and are now living in a distant land, estranged from those who love us. Recognizing our sin is the prelude to grace."

As we see our wretchedness, we must look for God's goodness, and vice versa. We become like the prophet Isaiah, who upon seeing the Lord in a beautiful vision of glory, exclaimed, "Woe to me! … I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isa. 6:5).

Jesus, saving us through his sacrifice and giving us new life in him, meets us in our weaknesses. He will minister to us during Lent if we allow him into our habits and our hearts. He will bring us past introspection, past hopelessness, and into a state of utter dependence on him.

Look Forward

Just as we don't stand alone in our sin during Lent, the season itself is not isolated. It wasn't arbitrarily thrown into the church year. Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, in his book Great Lent, says that the church seasons, especially Lent, "help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it."

Lent helps us return to Jesus. Although it can be a deep time of reflection and contemplation on its own, it serves a greater purpose. Schmemann also says, "Lent is a spiritual journey and its destination is Easter, the 'Feast of Feasts.' "

Because Lent pulls us upward to Jesus, it also pulls us forward to Holy Week, when we see our Savior's sacrifice most vividly through his death on a cross and his victory over death. Humbling ourselves through this 40-day season allows us to be ready for the intensity of Holy Week and the exhilaration of the Resurrection.

Look Outward

Lent pulls us upward to Jesus and forward to meet the crucified and risen Lord during Holy Week, but it also pulls us outward, to the body of believers surrounding us. Lent is part of the church year, the word church being vital in this spiritual journey.

We cannot and should not observe Lent on our own. As a rule, we're pretty bad at dealing with our own sin. We like to hide it or run from it, but it will always nip at our heels. To truly deal with the reality of sin, we need to practice confession. This is the discipline of allowing another Christian to know the darkness in our hearts and to minister forgiveness through Christ. Only by telling someone else about our sin do we actually walk in the light of Jesus' grace.

Observing Lent as the church, and not just as individuals, also helps us avoid what author and teacher Leanne Payne calls the "disease of introspection," or constant self-focus. Just as looking upward and forward shows us who we really are—frail and forgiven—opening our eyes to the sin of humanity and the sins of others allows us to be more compassionate persons, capable of walking alongside others as they confess and seek forgiveness.

Fasting Helps Us See

Lent allows us to see ourselves and one another in all our sin and brokenness. It's usually not a pretty picture, our unveiled selves. We're often able to cover this raw image with addictive behaviors, busy lives, and ministry. The point of Lent, though, is to strip us of trappings, even some good ones, in order to see our need for mercy and to turn our eyes upward, forward, and outward.

The spiritual discipline of fasting has been the primary way the church has observed Lent over the centuries. When we give up something for this season, large or small, we mirror Jesus' journey into the wilderness for 40 days as we take on our own spiritual wilderness of sorts.

Sometimes it's a small sacrifice, like giving up chocolate. For some this will seem like a huge challenge, but it's really, in the grand scheme of things, a very tiny form of self-denial. Practically speaking, a sacrifice this miniscule shouldn't grow our spiritual life at all, certainly not as much as an abundant prayer life or the act of giving money or service.

The act of giving up chocolate for Lent is mustard seed-sized obedience. Fortunately, God works well with mustard seeds, as Jesus says in Matthew 17:20: "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." God has a mysterious way of transforming these small mustard seeds we give him. In his power, these daily choices we make start to form us into persons who seek after God.

For example, if we're used to coming home from work and sitting in front of the television, what will we do with our time when we give up TV for Lent? We'll probably think about this sacrifice often, even on a daily basis. It might sting a little each time we think of it, especially when we know our favorite show is on.

But soon, new habits will form in our former habit's absence. By giving something to God, we allow him to rewrite our daily rhythms and fill our thoughts. We will dream, we will create, and ideally, we will use this sacrifice to connect to the Lord through prayer.

Lent strips away some of our distractions, not only those of our fast-paced culture, but those in our own human skin. We are prone to wander, as the hymn "Come Thou Fount" says. Lent keeps us centered and away from the wanderlust our hearts know so well. Like a spiritual compass, it points our hearts home, to Christ and his mercy.

Even in our discipline, though, we will fall flat on our faces sometimes. We will try to change our habits for the greater purpose of meeting Jesus, but we will still fail. We will face our fragile humanity again and again. And in his mercy, Christ will receive us again and again. But this is the very crux, the power of Lent: It is only in our ability to admit failure and sin that we can look and run to Jesus for mercy. He will always redeem us in our neediness, giving us beauty for these Lenten ashes.

Related Bible Studies

Free Newsletters

More Newsletters

Follow us