Today is Ash Wednesday. Did you know the ashes represent creation and the curse. One in the same! With this focus on our own mortality and sinfulness, Christians can enter into the Lent season solemnly while also looking forward in greater anticipation and joy to the message of Easter and Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death. It marks the season of drawing closer to God and our need for his love and grace.

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There are three C’s that describe Ash Wednesday: Creation, Curse, and Cry!

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Creation: we were made from Dust

Genesis 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

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Curse: Ashes also symbolize grief, in this case, grief that we have sinned and caused division from God.

Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Cry: our cry to be pure and clean again by God’s grace and mercy!

One great example of a cry is Psalm 51. In that psalm, we find three C’s of ash Wednesday by King David. First the Cry for compassion and grace. He cries out for cleansing, blotting out, and washing away of his sins. David chose these three terms to cover all aspects of his body. Cleansing was used to make his defiled body from sin pure and clean again. Blotting out refers to a heart issue and asks for forgiveness of his sins. Lastly, washing his dirty body, mind, and heart to make them as clean and pure as snow. This cry is deep and heartfelt!

Then he goes to the climax of these verses where we find the curse of our hearts and the creation of hearts intertwined. For in the womb we were sinful at birth, the curse, and created in the image of our God, creation. It amazes me to think at birth we were both sinful and pure!

This shows that our hearts are at the center of what we do and say. David’s cry shows us that we are incapable of changing our own hearts! We like David, know that our inner persons is the source of the curse of sin and trouble and at the same time the source of our joys and blessings. We are incapable of changing our hearts without God’s mercy and grace. Only God through our cry can transform and make our hearts, minds, and bodies clean and pure!

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‌Psalm 51 does not miss a beat in expressing the modern person’s heart. The psalmist’s cry “Create in me a clean heart” focuses our attention on our desires and passions. It is not just a sin that we need to confess but to examine the orientation of our hearts! I believe that much of the church’s push for the practicality of faith in the past couple of decades has focused our attention on the symptoms of our disease, sin, rather than our wayward heart that desires the wrong things in the first place.

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I believe a much-needed focus back on our hearts is a better solution and reflection for confession. Our hearts are the guides of our lives. Jesus’s commands us to follow Him. Which means we shall align our loves and longings with His. To me, this means to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all. So we cry out, “Create in me a clean heart!” This cry should be the cry of every faithful disciple.

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So I ask you this week before Lent season begins. What do you need to seek after God to control and transform in your own body, mind and/or heart?

Prayer 



Lord, Holy One, have mercy on us. We confess our sins to you. We have fallen short of your glory and without your mercy and grace, we would be dust. We repent now. Lord, as we enter this Lenten season, be near us. Help us, by your Holy Spirit, to feel the conviction and repentance for our sin. Help us, by your Spirit, to have the strength to love others. Help us keep the weight and the joy of this season in our hearts as we move through the next several weeks. Help us bear the good fruit of your Spirit. Thank you that the ashes on our forehead do not symbolize our ultimate reality. From dust, we might have been formed, but our bodies, our spirits, and ourselves, await beautiful redemption and the restoration of all things. Help us long and look forward to that day, and let it come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Amen.