There is an obvious problem with Ash Wednesday, and I want to address it right from the beginning.
The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday is from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus provides three instructions for practicing the three disciplines that define Lent: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
His instructions for all three follow the same basic pattern. Do not do these things to be seen by others. Do not do them for public recognition. Do not perform your righteousness. Do not be like the hypocrites who disfigure their faces so others will notice their fasting. Instead — and this is where it gets uncomfortable — Jesus says:
“But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:17–18).
The Gospel reading says, “Wash your face,” and then, as the sermon ends on Ash Wednesday, a minister goes and does the opposite. The minister marks the people’s faces with ashes.
What’s going on here? Have we gathered to do exactly what Jesus warned us not to? Are the ashes we wear on Ash Wednesday simply a show of religiousness, a way to demonstrate our piety to everyone around us? If Jesus tells us to wash our faces and we instead mark them with ashes, are we being the very hypocrites Jesus warns about?
Truth in the Inward Parts
What Jesus requires in Matthew 6 is not new. He isn’t presenting a new standard that caught Israel off guard. Long before the Sermon on the Mount, the prophet Joel and the Psalmist were already saying the same thing.
The word of the Lord that came to Joel arrived during a time of disaster. A locust swarm had devastated the land. The day of the Lord was near, dark and without dawn. Amid this crisis, God called his people to return, but with a warning about how that return should happen. The Lord says through Joel:
Rend your hearts and not your garments (Joel 2:13).
Rending garments was an ancient Near Eastern gesture of grief and mourning. People tore their clothing to show everyone that something terrible had happened, that they were devastated, and that they were overwhelmed. It was a visible, public act that could not be mistaken. And God says: Don’t do that. Or rather, don’t do only that. Do not perform your grief. Do not perform your repentance. Instead, rend your hearts — which is to say, let the grief from your sin go all the way down, into the place where no one can see it except you and God.
Likewise, Psalm 51 is David’s powerful psalm of repentance, written after his sin with Bathsheba. It offers perhaps the clearest picture in all of Scripture of what truly rending the heart looks like. David is not performing here. There is no audience. There is no one to impress. He is alone with God and with the truth about himself, and the truth is overwhelming.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment (Ps 51:3–4).
I must point out that some people regard David as a model of strictly vertical repentance — he perceives his sin only in relation to God, and they argue that this is the true sign of genuine contrition. I am not convinced that David deserves such high praise.
David did not sin only against God. He also sinned against Bathsheba, a woman he held near-absolute power over and who had little ability to refuse him. And he clearly sinned against Uriah, her husband, whom he arranged to be killed.
“Against you, you only, have I sinned” may reveal more about David’s blind spots than his spiritual depth. The better approach is not to exclude the people we have wronged from our confession, but to explicitly name them — to come before God and say not only “I have sinned against you,” but “I have sinned against her, against him, against them,” because God sees and loves those people we have harmed too.
What David says next goes to the heart of everything we do on Ash Wednesday.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart (Ps 51:6).
Truth in the inner being. From David to Joel to Jesus, this is what God has always sought. Not torn garments. Not disfigured faces. Not ashes worn as a badge of piety. God is after truth in our inner being — a reckoning that occurs in secret, in the hidden place of the heart, where only you and God can see. This is the proper posture for Ash Wednesday.
When Jesus says, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” he is not just telling us to avoid showing off. He is also pointing us toward a God who sees what no one else can see and cares more about what is happening in the secret place of our hearts than about anything we do publicly. To be concerned about whether we have ashes on our foreheads or not is still to be concerned about what’s happening on the outside of us. The whole purpose of Ash Wednesday is not to perform repentance but to genuinely repent, which happens, first and foremost, between you and God alone.
When You Come Forward
So, what are the ashes for?
Some people, including my liturgics professor, after grappling with this specific tension, have suggested that we should eliminate the cross shape entirely and go back to the older practice of sprinkling ashes on the head, where they can’t be seen. This practice is indeed the older method.
I understand the point, but it focuses on the wrong issue.
Ashes without the cross don’t transform anything on the inside of you, but they do leave you with a less truthful symbol.
Ashes alone say one thing. They say that you are mortal, that you came from dust and to dust you will return.
That message is true, but it is not uniquely Christian. Every religion and philosophy that has honestly engaged with the human condition has expressed something similar. The Stoics understood this. The Buddhists understand it. The existentialists understand it. If all we do on Ash Wednesday is remind each other that we will die, then all we’ve really accomplished is having a very cheap therapy session.
But the cross marked on your forehead on Ash Wednesday is not just a simple decoration. The cross gives the ashes a purpose beyond despair. When I trace that cross on your forehead, I’m not saying, “This is your end. To dust and ash you shall return.” Instead, I’m saying, “This would be your end, but Christ himself has already claimed you.”
The ashes proclaim the curse — you are dust, you have sinned, and you will die. But the cross speaks a louder, truer word over the ashes — Christ has taken on Adam’s curse so that dust and ash are not your end. It is not the ashes that define the cross, but the cross that defines the ashes.
The ashes on your forehead are not a display of piety for those around you. They are instead an honest acknowledgment of the truth about yourself — that you are mortal, that you are a sinner, and that without Christ, this would be your end. But they also serve as a declaration of an even greater truth: that the cross of Jesus Christ has already spoken on your behalf, and in what it proclaims, it speaks louder than the curse, louder than the dust, louder than your sin, and louder than even death.
This is why the collect for Ash Wednesday begins with words that should stop us in our tracks: “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing that you have made.” God does not hate you for what you are confessing today. In fact, he loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his Son to bear the weight of everything in your life that the ashes represent. And the cross on your forehead is the sign that he has already taken that weight upon himself and done away with it forever.
The Beginning of Lent
Lent does not start with a resolution. It does not start with a plan. It does not start with you deciding how to improve yourself over the next forty days. Lent begins with an honest reckoning before God, the kind Joel demanded of Israel, the kind David shows us in Psalm 51, the kind that cries out:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions (Ps 51:1).
Lent begins not with confidence in our own ability to change but with the recognition that only God can create in us a clean and contrite heart and renew a right spirit within us. Even our repentance, even our turning, is something he must do in us. Look again at the collect: it asks God to “create and make in us new and contrite hearts.” We cannot manufacture contrition. We can only run to the God who can.
This internal turning, this reorienting of our hearts, is what God has always wanted from his people — not a performance of religion, but a genuine return. Not torn garments, but a rent heart. Not the appearance of humility, but the real thing. Not dust trying its best to perform its way back to God, but dust relying on the infinite mercy of God and thereby being raised by God, breathed into again, made alive again.
So ask God today to rend your heart. Plead with him if you must. Come before your Father in secret, and beg him to do what only he can do — create in you a clean heart, renew a right spirit within you, and restore in you the joy of his salvation. That joy is the promise of Lent. It comes not from a set of disciplines that we perform in our own strength, but from the God who sees in secret and who, when we come to him honestly, is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Joel 2:13).
This is who God has always been. This is who God will always be. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Life Group Guide
Intro Prayer
Heavenly Father, as we gather together today, we ask that you would open our hearts and minds to receive what you want to teach us through your Word. Help us to be honest with ourselves and with you about who we are and our need for your grace. Create in us clean hearts and renew right spirits within us. May our time together draw us closer to you and to one another. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Ice Breaker
What is one tradition or practice from your childhood that seemed confusing or contradictory to you at the time, but makes more sense to you now as an adult?
Questions
How do you understand the tension between Jesus’ instruction to ‘wash your face’ and the practice of receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday?
What is the difference between ‘rending your garments’ and ‘rending your heart’ as described in Joel 2:13? How does this apply to our spiritual lives today?
Father Michael mentions that David’s confession, ‘against you, you only have I sinned,’ may reflect blind spots rather than spiritual depth. How can we ensure our repentance includes acknowledgment of how we’ve wronged others?
What does it mean to have ‘truth in the inward being’ as mentioned in Psalm 51:6? How can we cultivate this in our own lives?
How does the cross traced in ashes change the meaning of the ashes themselves? What does this symbolize about our identity in Christ?
The collect states that ‘God hates nothing that he has made.’ How does this truth impact the way we view ourselves and our sin?
What is the difference between beginning Lent with resolutions versus beginning with ‘honest reckoning before God’?
How can we practice the spiritual disciplines of Lent (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) in a way that focuses on internal transformation rather than external performance?
Life Application
This week, spend time in private prayer asking God to reveal areas of your heart that need His transforming work. Practice one of the Lenten disciplines—prayer, fasting, or almsgiving—in secret, focusing not on what others might see but on genuine heart change that only God can accomplish. Consider writing down specific ways you have wronged others and honestly bring these before God in confession.
Key Takeaways
True repentance happens in secret between you and God, not as a performance for others to see.
The cross traced in ashes transforms their meaning from despair to hope - declaring that Christ has already claimed us and borne our curse.
God desires ‘truth in the inward being’ and genuine heart change rather than external religious performances.
Lent begins with honest reckoning before God, recognizing that only he can create clean hearts and renew right spirits within us.
God hates nothing that he has made and loves us so much that he sent his Son to bear the weight of our sin and mortality.
Ending Prayer
Gracious and merciful God, we thank you for seeing us in secret and loving us completely. We confess that we are dust and sinners, but we rejoice that the cross of Christ speaks louder than our failures. Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. Help us to live this week with truth in our inward being, seeking genuine transformation rather than just performance. May the joy of your salvation be our strength as we walk through this Lenten season. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.