Ash Wednesday service, March 6, 7pm
Ash Wednesday at St. Peter’s 2019
We begin our observation of Jesus’ death and resurrection by preparing for Easter with a season of penitence.
Before he began his public ministry, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan, and resisting those temptations. The forty day season of Lent gives us needed time and space to enter into our own wilderness spaces as we examine our lives, acknowledge the ways that evil has slipped into our lives, ask for forgiveness, and make needed course corrections in our lives so that we can whole heartedly follow Jesus. The Ash Wednesday service is our doorway into this Lenten time and space in which we come before God in repentance, praying that God will strengthen our faith.
This service also includes the imposition of ashes on our foreheads to remind us of our mortal nature and to remember that everlasting life is God’s gracious gift to us, through Jesus Christ our Savior, a gift that we can neither merit nor earn on our own.
In the current time it is death to those things that separate us from Jesus. Foreheads are marked with crosses. In the Bible, a mark on the forehead is a symbol of a person’s ownership. By having their foreheads marked with the sign of a cross, this symbolizes that the person belongs to Jesus Christ, who died on a Cross.
Links:
1. For more information on Ash Wednesday see this link
2. Links from Kencollins.com
Reason for ashes on Ash Wednesday
"Why can’t I find ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ in the Bible?"