Ash Wednesday: The Start of Lent!

Ash Wednesday is believed to have started in the 6th century and it begins again today.  Lent is meant to be a time of repentance and a time to truly meditate on all that Jesus willingly suffered so that we might go to Heaven.

Not only His Death on the Cross on Good Friday and the fact that He Rose to Life on Easter, but all the suffering that leads up to those days.  Think about our own human nature.  Jesus would have thought of His Mom’s suffering and the suffering of His Father.  And the suffering of all of those who loved Him. 

Jesus also would have thought of the good that would occur.  The Saving of us and those before us.  How much He loved us!

Can we truly imagine being whipped or watching whipped we love be scourged? How that must have hurt!

Can we truly imagine how physically hard it must have been to walk to and from all of those cities when Jesus was preaching?  How His back, legs and feet must have hurt.  But because He loved us, He kept going…

Despite His Great Love and Sacrifice for us, some rejected Him. How that must have hurt!  He was willing to sacrifice so much for us and yet there were those who did not accept it and those who accepted it but did not really appreciate it. And sadly, that is still true today!

And it was not just His Sacrifice that was horrific.  Mary stood at His feet and watched Him suffer.  Those who loved Him, like John, also stood at His feet and watched His Great sacrifice too.  How difficult it must have been for Jesus to watch the pain of those who loved Him.  And how horrific it must have been for Mary to watch her Son suffer so.

And there was the Sacrifice of our Father.  How much it must have hurt our Father to watch His Only Son suffer so!  How much God must have loved us to be willing to do that.  And how much our Father loves us still.

This is what Lent is for.  It’s a time for Meditating on all Jesus sacrificed and on the sacrifices of those who loved Him.  It’s a time to meditate on Jesus’ Great Love for us and a time for repentance for us. 

And in a time of Covid and political upheaval, it’s exactly the right time for both.