Why We Do What We Do | Lent & Ash Wednesday 2025

Wednesday, March 5th, marks the beginning of Lent, a transformative six-week season leading up to the Pascha (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday). Lent is a time for us to intentionally set aside the things in our everyday lives that separate us from God and to focus on living lives of holiness and obedience for the glory of God. It’s a season marked by repentance and faith, serving to reorient us in the reality that we are sinful people who a merciful Savior saves.

Lent prompts us to consider the greatness of a holy God and experience his presence in our lives, and as we do so, we become mindful of our sin and idolatry. God does not turn us away but invites us to confess our sins and be cleansed. This is a regular rhythm of worship, but we have a heightened sense of our need for forgiveness during Lent.

Lent also helps us to intentionally set aside time in the presence of God to take an honest look at ourselves. Like David, we call out from Psalm 139:23-24:

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Lent moves us to think about our inner motivations, external behaviors, hearts, and habits. Standing before a holy God who knows everything about us takes courage and humility. And so, we humble ourselves before the eternal God who created us and who must, if we are to live, redeem us.

In Lent, we again turn away from our sins and temptations and toward God and his great mercy. This is otherwise known as repentance. In this posture of worship, we resolve to leave our sinful lifestyle and seek forgiveness for our sins. To repent is not just to turn away from living in our ways, for our pleasure and our glory, but to flee to Christ, resolving to live in his ways, for his pleasure and his glory.

At the heart of Lent are ‘dust’ and ‘ashes.’ These symbolize two themes we find in Lent: our creaturely mortality (our inherent dependence on God as His created beings) and our moral culpability (our responsibility for our actions and the need for repentance). Dust speaks of our physical dependence on God, and ashes signify our spiritual repentance before God. We see in Scripture that ashes or dust symbolize mortality, mourning, judgment, and repentance. During a traditional Ash Wednesday service, ashes are applied on a worshiper’s head in the shape of a cross to give a tangible reminder that we come from dust and are fragile, fallible, and fallen human beings. However, the shape of the cross also serves as a tangible reminder of what Paul says in Romans 6:11: we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

We believe that the Lent season is a powerful time for us as FBC to meditate on our need for a Savior, renew our commitment to daily repentance (the act of turning away from sin and towards God on a daily basis), and remember with confidence and gratitude that Jesus has conquered sin and death.

To mark this Lenten season, we will have an Ash Wednesday gathering on Wednesday, March 5th, at 6:30 pm. This is a time for us to come together as a community, to confess our sins to a God who loves us and who wants to transform us. We will sing, reflect, remember, and respond to the gospel. We hope you join us.