Today is Ash Wednesday, a date on the Christian calendar which marks the beginning of Lent.” Ash Wednesday is about preparation, and the beginning of preparation at that. All of the Lenten season is focused upon preparation for Easter. Ash Wednesday is about how we can begin those preparations. It is ‘to make a right beginning of repentance,’ as the Book of Common Prayer puts it. We are reminded of ‘the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.’ Ash Wednesday is the day when the journey toward Easter begins.” (BillyGraham.org)
Lent is a time to fix our eyes on Jesus and our own need for His sacrifice, to remember that we are but dust, but that it His great love that makes us people of hope and an eternal future. It is a time for examination of ourselves, as we acknowledge our sin and our complete inability to save ourselves. And it is a time to remember the Savior, full of grace and truth, who acknowledges the depth of our sin, but Whose love is even wider and higher and longer and deeper than that sin. How fitting that in 2024, the beginning of Lent falls on the observance of Valentine’s Day.
May we acknowledge and turn away from our own great sin and turn our faces toward the greater love of God.
“O Lord, I cannot plead my Love of Thee;
I plead Thy love of me; —
The shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.” – Christian Rossetti