He Knows Our Frame
Psalm 103:6-19
Genesis 3:19:
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
Ash Wednesday invites us to remember 3 realities:
I. The Certainty of Death
II. The Cause of our Pain
“Lent is not a general sadness about the inevitability of death but an explicitly Christian diagnosis of the cause of death. We sin and die because humanity rebelled against God. There is nothing natural at all about death. It is an alien intrusion into the good world God created… Through the imposition of the ashes, Ash Wednesday reminds us that death and sin cannot be completely separated. This does not mean a particular form of death is punishment for specific sins, but sin and death are partners.”
~ Esau McCaulley
III. The Cross of Christ
“Instead of becoming a source of despair, our sin becomes the arena of God’s glory. He doesn’t have barely enough grace to forgive us. He is rich in this stuff; it overflows from his very nature. Ash Wednesday invites an introspection that leads to an acknowledgement of our sin that collides with an explosion of God’s grace. No step in this process can be skipped.”
~ Esau McCaulley
