I felt the urge to reach out this morning. Lent arrives this Wednesday. If there was a season to contemplate mankind’s dreadful predicament, it’s Lent.

I suppose, in a broad sense, death’s predicament is not lost on humans. We’re all facing it. Still, believers have the best handle on it. We have the Gospel—the proclamation of death’s cost and the Savior who accomplished its payment by His own death.

During staff devotions this morning, I shared a portion from Luther. He spoke of the cross and the Christian’s desire to be worthy of it. He wrote, “Is it not a wonder to be possessed of a ready will toward death, while everyone dreads it? Thus is the cross sanctified.”

I’m concerned that far too many mainstream churches seem to have lost their formal grip on this. They demonstrate as much by their crucifix-less worship spaces. One pastor (if you can call him that) in a church not far from my own won’t allow crosses to be displayed in his facility. He openly admits that crucifixes—and even bare crosses, for that matter—are offensive to visitors. And yet, Saint Paul preached so fervently, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23), knowing that such a message would be received as offensive and foolish by an onlooking world.

It’s heartbreaking when a church views the cross through the world’s lenses.

You should know what I’ve described is rarely lost on liturgical churches. A liturgical church will likely have crucifixes displayed throughout its expanse—and not just one or two, but many. Interestingly, Paulo Freire, the father of Critical Pedagogy (which is foundational to Critical Theory), insisted that for his Marxist theories to prevail, traditional liturgical churches needed to be deconstructed and their symbols dispensed and forgotten. Freire wasn’t concerned with contemporary churches. Why? Because traditional liturgical churches are by nature impenetrably linked to faith and its symbols, and in Freire’s research, far more dangerous. They don’t roll over when persecuted. They produce a far sturdier commitment than churches devoted to cultural appeasement. Hitler agreed, calling the more contemporary churches in Germany “mushy.” He was more so bothered by historically creedal churches and their believers. The historic Creeds define, teach, and defend truth. A church’s historic liturgies carry it. The church’s calendar—the liturgical seasons—imposes it in long-lasting and unforgettable ways. And by long-lasting and unforgettable, I mean it stays with a congregation generation after generation, binding it to those who came before and those who will come after.

A persecutor laboring to destroy such a church won’t have an easy time. Its identity is built from ranks the persecutor can’t even see.

Here’s some free advice: When any organization (whether it’s the Boy Scouts, your favorite car company, football team, or whatever) begins obscuring its symbols, jettisoning its creeds, or altering its traditions, beware. These are essential to the organization’s identity. When they change, so does their identity. They’re inextricably linked.

I suppose I’ve wandered too far already. So, here’s what I really came here to tell you.

A critical Church season begins this week. It starts with a crucial moment epitomizing the Church’s identity. It deliberately resists desires to loosen our grip on who we are and what we are to believe, teach, and confess.

Epiphany and the Gesima Sundays become Lent. As these season’s crowds approach, Lent’s somber doorman, Ash Wednesday, will clatter through its ancient keyring with cinder-stained fingers to open Lent’s door. Year after year, Ash Wednesday’s digits have etched a cross upon the foreheads of countless believers passing through this entry, elbowing them toward honesty, nudging them toward a vital confession that matters when pondering Golgotha’s truest weight: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). And yet, Ash Wednesday’s participants do this wearing a black-powdery smudge in the shape of a cross. Yes, we are dust. We will die. And yet, in Christ, by His death on the cross, we’ve been made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22). Death in Christ is not to die but to live (Philippians 1:21).

Ash Wednesday’s liturgy amplifies what the Christian Church knows about death. It amplifies what we know about a certain Someone who met with death and outmaneuvered it. Ash Wednesday brings us in. Lent will take us the rest of the way. It will dive so much deeper into our genuine need for rescue while showing us over and over again the One who can meet the need.

Ash Wednesday, and therefore Lent, remind us that the clash between Jesus and death won’t be pretty. Death won’t just hand us over to Him. Death is the last enemy, and he’s been waiting his turn in line to consume us (1 Corinthians 15:26). Rest assured, war will ensue, and it’ll get ugly. At first, the glorious rescue will look more like defeat. Jesus will confront the challenger, submitting to its dreadfulness. He won’t lift a finger to defend Himself. He’ll endure, taking all of it in. The results will be His mutilated body nailed to a blood-soaked cross lifted high above the warfare’s haze. We’ll see Him pinned there like an animal; an outcast doled an awful demise.

And that, right there, is the message we preach! We preach Christ crucified! The Lord’s greatest work is His humble submission as the sacrifice for sin! This is His truest glory (John 12:23-33; Mark 10:32-38)! His resurrection is the proof pointing to this great deed. He owned the death we deserve, and He rose from the grave, proving He beat the specter at its own game, giving the spoils to all who believe.

This is Ash Wednesday’s message. Admittedly, it’s gritty. But it’s thoroughly consolidated and good. If you’ve never considered attending an Ash Wednesday service, I encourage you to do so. If your church doesn’t offer one, find a church that does. We’ll offer two here at Our Savior in Hartland, the first at 8:10 am and the second at 6:30 pm.

Consider these things, and in the meantime, God bless and keep you by His grace. Indeed, Lent has come. But rejoice, the fruit of the Lord’s greatest work—Easter—is coming, too.