For those who follow the Church calendar, we are now in the liturgical season of Lent—the lead-up season that prepares us for the high point of the year-- Holy Week[1] and Resurrection Sunday. Lent is, appropriately, forty days long, and begins with Ash Wednesday, that peculiar service where ashes get smeared on your forehead in the shape of a cross. The ashes are applied with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
How strange.
How uncool.
How un-seeker-friendly!
Yet to my surprise, Ash Wednesday has become my hands-down, favourite service of the year. I experience it as the year’s primo revival service, it’s the service where we all authentically do business with God and get freshly restored to intimacy with Him. It’s a corporate time to take stock of where we are and where we’ve strayed from God’s ways (knowingly or unknowingly), then as we corporately humble ourselves and honestly face those wayward parts of our hearts, we together receive the forgiveness and cleansing of the Lord. It’s a service heavy with the presence of the Lord in tangible, holy ways. Tears are easy, lingering on our knees is common, worship is heartfelt and unhindered.
TOGETHER MATTERS
The “together part” is one of the key things that makes it so potent. As we pray through the liturgy of confession, we are all saying the words-- while of course specific confessions hit in deeper places and apply more directly to some, and other confessions apply more to others-- we all confess together. We all humble ourselves, which makes it safe for everyone to be honest and real with God. We go to the foot of the cross together.
Here are the liturgical confessions that were carefully crafted in the 1970s and still speak to us today. They are used by tens of millions of Christians on Ash Wednesday and remain a fantastic resource to guide repentance at any time. Found in the Book of Common Prayer (pg 547 in the 2019 edition), they are prayed responsively, with the leader praying and the congregation in unison, responding.
Leader: Let us humbly confess our sins to Almighty God.
Silence may follow. The Leader and People together, all kneeling, pray:
Most holy and merciful Father, we confess to you, and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned, through our own fault, in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ.
We have grieved your Holy Spirit.
Leader: Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
The Leader alone continues, and the People respond to each confession.
For all our unfaithfulness and disobedience; for the pride, vanity, and hypocrisy of our lives;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our self-pity and impatience, and our envy of those we think more fortunate than ourselves;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our unrighteous anger, bitterness, and resentment; for all lies, gossip, and slander against our neighbors;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our sexual impurity, our exploitation of other people, and our failure to give of ourselves in love;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our intemperate pursuit of worldly goods and comforts;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our dishonesty in daily life and work, our ingratitude for your gifts, and our failure to heed your call.
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People: For we have sinned against you.
For our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People: For we have sinned against you.
For our wastefulness and misuse of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People: For we have sinned against you.
For all false judgments, for prejudice and contempt of others, and for all uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For our negligence in prayer and worship; for our presumption and abuse of your means of grace;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
For seeking the praise of others rather than the approval of God;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People: For we have sinned against you.
For our failure to commend the faith that is in us;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
People : For we have sinned against you.
All then pray:
Show favor to your people, O Lord, who turn to you in weeping, fasting, and prayer. For you are a merciful God, full of compassion, long-suffering, and abounding in steadfast love. You spare when we deserve punishment, and in your wrath you remember mercy. Spare your people, good Lord, spare us; in the multitude of your mercies, look upon us and forgive us; through the merits and mediation of your blessed Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I love that this guided, corporate repentance is so comprehensive, it covers things I wouldn’t naturally think of and at the same time, doesn’t allow me to do a gloss-over, reclassifying sin as mistakes, weaknesses, personality quirks, or just poor choices. It’s full-throated repentance.
Yet the process doesn’t leave us in shame or grovelling, because there is a priest who responds with the absolution. He isn’t doing the forgiveness himself but is vocalizing the forgiveness which is granted by God and promised by scripture. Hearing with our ears, God’s forgiveness spoken out loud by the voice of one who has spiritual authority, enables us to receive it in a different way— in a more powerful way. It’s like the difference between having someone in authority prophesying over you vs. having a sense of an inner voice that you think might be God… but you aren’t 100% sure. These land differently.
While receiving God’s forgiveness is something we all do every time we confess sin, this added gift of absolution moves the whole congregation together into confidence that the Lord has truly forgiven us. It helps make sure no one gets stuck in shame or condemnation.
REVIVAL & REPENTANCE
Revival has always been birthed by prayer, extensive prayer—but it is also marked by repentance. We shouldn’t try to bypass this or seek to recraft revival as only an experience of joyful blessings. While God will and does bless generously at all times, true revival has repentance in its foundation. This is what Peter preached:
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord… (Acts 3:19,20a).
Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord—isn’t that a perfect description of revival? Of course, these words of Peter’s were in the midst of his sermon after healing the beggar at the Beautiful Gate, and the results were that many believed. There was a harvest of souls that marked this revival moment, perhaps hundreds chose repentance and found the refreshing in the presence of the Lord that was promised.
This is what I experience each year at Ash Wednesday. Certainly, not only there, but thankfully, I can count on this service being a consistent time of deep encounter and refreshing.
AND ASHES
Yet it’s not just a service that allows time for deep repentance. There is also that ashes bit. The admonishment: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” is found in Gen 3:19, the judgment of mortality that came as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin. But thankfully, the ashes are applied in the shape of a cross, to remind us of the work of Christ to break the curse of sin and death. Yes, we are weak and mortal, but Jesus offers us new life, His life, life that is eternal.
So there is an important element of contrition, but also a reflection on our mortality, our need, and Christ’s provision of redemption.
“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children…” Ps 103:13-17
He remembers that we are dust, formed from the earth of the ground by the hands of God, breathed into with the breath of God, becoming a living creature, made in His image. We too, should remember that we were formed from the dust, that we are not God, nor can exist independently of Him.
So Ash Wednesday is an incredible, annual service of remembering that we are dust, and yet dearly loved and redeemed dust. Dust that is now being transformed to contain and reflect more and more of the glory of God.
A LITTLE LATE?
Well Sara, that’s all fine and good, but Ash Wednesday is past, I missed it, you should have written all this a month ago!
Agreed. I probably should have.
However, the two important themes of Ash Wednesday are available at any time for us to lean into, We are not God, so let’s cling to the One who is almighty, and eternal, we utterly need Him and He deeply loves us. Then secondly, let’s learn how to repent in deeper, more comprehensive ways. While there are exceptional benefits to corporate repentance, personal, private repentance is also a skill we want to cultivate. May it be, that we can go to our knees quickly, not glibly— but we would always be quick to repent.
Why not use the liturgy of confession that I included in this article? Keep it for your times of retreat, teach it to your children and grandchildren, pray it through with your prayer group. Let’s learn the ways of deeper repentance so that the promised, glorious, times of refreshing can come into our lives, families, and churches—on a continual basis.
[1] Holy Week starts on Palm Sunday and includes Maundy Thursday (the last supper), Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then (drumroll…) we burst into Easter (or Resurrection) Sunday!