A critical season in the Church’s life begins this Wednesday. It starts with a defining moment, one that communicates the Church’s identity in ways that the other Church seasons do not. The season before us—Lent—pits itself against all temptations to loosen our grip on who we are and what we are called to believe, teach, and confess.

Epiphany and the Gesima Sundays (Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima) led us to this moment. Epiphany showed us who Christ is relative to His claims. The Gesima Sundays urged us to embrace His Gospel work, no matter how backward a divine but crucified King might seem.

 From there, we enter Lent. We do so through Ash Wednesday’s liturgy.

As we pass, our foreheads are marked with all that remains from fire’s insatiable judgment. Remnant cinders are smeared on Christian foreheads, but only as we’re also told by the one applying them, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19), or as the early Latin saying eventually summarized, “Memento mori”—remember, you must die. The ashen smear is a messy mark—grittily filthy and hard to wash off. That alone speaks volumes. Death is Sin’s wage, and it will be paid. The payment is not an easy thing. It is tenaciously dirty. It is impossibly thick.

If you’re paying attention, another thought might come to mind in that moment. Anyone participating in the Ash Wednesday liturgy likely does so by first standing in a line. One will go before another and then another and then another. Eventually, it’s your turn to confront death’s dreadfulness.

We all will. We all do.

However, if you can, watch the motion of the one applying the ashes. Even if the resulting mark is crassly formed, you’ll at least see it was done so in the shape of a cross. You’re not remembering death in terror. Ash Wednesday’s liturgy is not condemning you. Neither is the vested one at the end of the line who’s marking your face. You’re being readied, reinforced, and sent into Lent well-equipped.

Yes, Death is Sin’s wage. But the believer bears in his body both the death and resurrected life of Jesus, the One in whom his faith is founded (2 Corinthians 4:10-11). Indeed, Christ’s death on the cross was the all-sufficient payment that thwarted Death’s reign. It is swallowed up in His resurrection victory, having forever lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

I’ve insisted on countless occasions that, if anything, Ash Wednesday’s liturgy reinforces what the Christian Church is to know of Death, lest it become too comfortable with what’s really going on behind the scenes in this life. It does this while, at the same time, redirecting the penitent heart to the only One who can give hope—the One who met death in its own lair, nullifying its power.

Ash Wednesday draws the believer in, ultimately calibrating Him for Lent’s deepest message. And what is that message?

The battle between Christ and Death will be brutal. Death will not surrender us easily. And so, the war will be fierce. At first glance, it will appear all too easy for Death. Christ will not fight back, but instead, will surrender Himself entirely and in every way, ultimately coming to a miserably horrific and mutilated end on a cross drenched in his own bloody agony and dejection. It will be quite the backward sight, one that makes little sense relative to this world’s calculus.

Ash Wednesday and Lent lead us to Golgotha’s happenings. Indeed, they’re raw and unpleasant. And yet, they’re good—thoroughly good. That’s because they’re the muscle fibers that form the Gospel’s heart. Amen, we preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23)!  Indeed, we are not afraid of Death because we are not ashamed or afraid of the Gospel! It is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17).

As always, I’m inclined to encourage you: If you have never attended an Ash Wednesday service, consider doing so. If you receive this note and your church does not offer one, find a church that does.

Here at Our Savior in Hartland, Michigan, we offer two Ash Wednesday services: one at 8:10 AM and another at 6:30 PM. You are welcome to join us in the line. You are welcome to remember Death’s concern rightly. But even better, you are welcome to hear the Good News that converts and convinces human hearts to faith—to hear that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and that whoever believes in Him, though he die, yet shall he live (John 11:25-26).

God bless and keep you in this faith now and always.