Ash Wednesday Drive-Thru Ashes & Blessing
6:30 -- 8:00 AM
Ash Wednesday Family-Friendly Worship Service
7:00 PM
Scripture
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21The Message (MSG)

The World Is Not a Stage

6:1 "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.
 
2-4 "When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure-'playactors' I call them-treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it-quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
Pray with Simplicity
 
5 "And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
 
6 "Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
 
16-18 "When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well.
 
A Life of God-Worship
 
19-21 "Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or-worse!-stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

Meditation

"Ash Wednesday" - John D. Painter
 
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It occurs 46 days before Easter. (While Lent is officially a season of forty days of fasting, the 6 Sundays in Lent are excluded from the fast because they are festival days of the resurrection.) Depending on the date of Easter (April 16 in 2017), Ash Wednesday can fall as early as February 4 or as late as March 10.
 
At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, immediately following his Baptism by John, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke describe Jesus entering into a forty-day period of fasting in the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan. Lent is a mirroring of this event, a time of solemn preparation for Easter.
 
The name of this day-Ash Wednesday-derives from the ancient practice of burning the dried palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday observance, and using those ashes to mark the foreheads of worshipers during special services throughout the day. The officiant usually applies the ashes in the form of a cross and says "Repent, and believe the Gospel" or "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
 
There is a long history of the use of ashes in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Ashes were used as a sign of grieving (Cf. 2 Samuel 13:19). Ashes have also been used to express sorrow for sins and as a sign of repentance (Cf. Job 42:3-6; Jeremiah 6:26; Daniel 9:3). Just prior to New Testament times, when the Maccabees were fighting for Jewish independence, they prepared for battle using ashes (Cf. 1 Maccabees 3:47; 4:39). Other examples of ashes being used by Jews can be found in Numbers, Jonah, and Esther. A Christian reference can be found in Hebrews 9:13-14. And in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13, Jesus is quoted as referring to the practice of using ashes for grieving and repentance: "If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago (sitting) in sackcloth and ashes."
 
Ancient Christians continued the symbolic use of ashes, and the practice spread into Asia and Europe (but not Rome). It was not until 1091 that Pope Urban II at the council of Benevento decreed that the observance of Ash Wednesday and the imposition of ashes be extended to the church in Rome. During and after the Protestant Reformation, some denominations (Lutheran, Anglican) maintained the practice, and others chose not to do so. In the wake of Vatican II (1962-1965) and liturgical revivals ushered in by the ecumenical movement in the 20th century, the use of ashes on this first day of Lent has become more common and accepted.
 
We invite you to come to Worship at Peace this evening to share in the Sacrament of Holy Communion and the Imposition of Ashes. (Or you may choose to avail yourself of the early morning opportunity to receive ashes on the portico of the church.) As you come, be prepared to enter into the observance of Lenten Discipline as indicated below:
 
(Some information gleaned from "Ash Wednesday," at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday)
 
Reflection
Invitation to the Observance of Lenten Discipline
 
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
the early Christians observed with great devotion
the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection,
and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration
there should be a forty day period of spiritual preparation.
During this season, converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins
and had separated themselves from the community of faith
were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness,
and restored to participation in the life of the Church.
In this way the whole congregation was reminded
of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ
and the need we all have to renew our faith.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,
to observe a holy Lent:
by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word.
To make a right beginning of repentance,
and as a mark of our mortal nature,
let us bow before our Creator and Redeemer.
 
("Invitation to the Observance of Lenten Discipline," The United Methodist Book of Worship, pages 322-323.)
Prayer
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