holy family jasper ga imposition of ashes

So, Abraham calls himself ashes as a way of expressing in words his perspective - he is but man standing in front of and speaking to the Holy God. Abraham knows that he is a created being, formed from the loose soil, and that because of sin, Abraham is headed back to the dust. Here, Abraham is acknowledging before God his creatureliness. Abraham says, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27b). The word means loose soil, dust, or “the residue that remains when something is burned.” The first time the word appears is in Genesis 18 when Abraham is trying to speak to God in all humility and reverence, interceding for Sodom. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for ashes ( e-pher) occurs just over 20 times. The word “ash” or “ashes” appears several times in Holy Scripture. In the end, the choice to receive ashes is entirely up to the individual, because, as we will discuss below, the practice is not commanded in Scripture. But, before we get to Ash Wednesday I thought I would write a quick article to help us understand the ritual and, perhaps, help those who have minor concerns about the imposition. All of these wonderings are good, and I would expect nothing less from our church body, which is wholly committed to the Word of God as our final authority in all matters of faith, practice, and life. You might wonder about the origins of the tradition or the biblical grounds for such a tradition or the value of ashes on the forehead. Some of you might be unsure why we do the imposition at Emmaus or in the Anglican tradition. Part of our worship service on March 2nd will include what is called the imposition of ashes. The confession has an aim we acknowledge our sinfulness such that we might recognize our great need for a Savior and then turn toward that Savior, who is Jesus, together.

But it is not an empty confession that we partake in. The confession is meant to call us to repentance - or to turning from our sin in acknowledgment. There is time for introspection and quiet devotion as we pray and meditate on God’s Word. On Ash Wednesday, however, we have a bit of a prolonged time of confession. And, we are reminded how much we need to go to the cross ourselves - go to the cross in faith, turning from self and sin, and to the Savior who redeems us by His shed blood.Īs our journey with Jesus begins, we come together to have a time of confession we do this every Sunday, and, if you follow the Daily Office, we confess twice a day. While we are not ourselves headed to an actual cross, we are reminded each Sunday of Jesus’s journey to the cross.

What I mean by calling our season of Lent “a journey” with the cross as our destination is that the Gospel readings on Sunday morning follow the journey that Jesus takes toward Jerusalem just before His passion. On Ash Wednesday we begin our journey to the cross.

Holy family jasper ga imposition of ashes