Ash Wednesday?
	(Did you hear about the religious moth?  He gave up cotton for lint)

I’m looking all around here, but I don’t see any ashes on your forehead. Just so you’ll know, this is “Ash Wednesday,” the first day of “Lent” (40 days, excluding Sundays, before Easter).  If you’re wondering why we make no religious observance of “Ash Wednesday,” it’s because, like so many holidays observed by the religious world around us, the Bible says nothing at all about Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, or Easter.

	For the denominations who observe these holidays, the proper procedure for Ash Wednesday is to use ashes from the burning of palm-wood crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday. They mix the ashes with a little olive oil to make a sticky paste, and apply the paste to the forehead, usually drawing the shape of a cross. That’s probably more than you wanted to know about Ash Wednesday. But there’s more!

	The day before Ash Wednesday is called Fat Tuesday. It is the last day to eat rich, fatty foods before the season of Lent, which is characterized by a restricted diet and periodic fasting. The whole Lenten season is preceded by a week of feasting known as Carnival, or, more commonly in this country, Mardi Gras. Unfortunately, Mardi Gras has become not merely a time of celebration & feasting, but a period of carnal excess of every kind (lewdness, fornication, drunkenness, et. al.) – i.e. the works of the flesh. It is like one last fling to indulge the carnal appetites before “repenting” (if you can call it that) on Ash Wednesday and curbing the fleshly appetites during Lent.

Scripture records one time that a person (Tamar, King David’s daughter) put ashes on her head as a sign of mourning (Also Esther 4:1 Mordecai, Queen Esther’s uncle, put on ashes, doesn’t say where). Repentance was sometimes symbolized by sitting in ashes (Isa. 58:5; Ezek. 27:30; also Job repented in dust & ashes; Jonah 3:6 king of Nineveh clothed himself in sackcloth & sat in ashes).

	While nothing in Scripture indicates that we would be more pleasing to God if we put ashes on our foreheads today, let us not allow the errors associated with Ash Wednesday to cloud the Biblical truth about repentance. God’s word tells us to repent any and every time that we sin (not just on one particular Wednesday during the year, or during a 40-day period). God now commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). Remember that the word repent means to change the mind. People often confuse repentance with the fruit of repentance, which is a reformation of behavior. But there will be no meaningful, lasting change of behavior unless there is first a change of mind. We must make a conscious and heart-felt determination to forsake out sins. That determination w/in our minds will produce the fruit of reformed behavior.

	When the Jews on Pentecost Day wanted to know what they should do, the first thing Peter told them was to repent (Acts 2:38). No person is a fit subject for baptism until he/she has repented! When Simon, the former Sorcerer (Acts 8) was convicted of his lapse back into sin, the first thing Peter told him to do was repent. There is no point in praying for God to forgive you of a sin for which you are unwilling to repent. It may be that tonight you need to repent & be baptized for the remission of sins – or that, as a child of God, you need to repent & pray for forgiveness. If this, or any other spiritual need, is yours, please respond to this invitation as we stand & sing to encourage you.

		--Joe Slater (Justin, TX)