Ash Wednesday Service: Return to the Lord with All Your Heart

Understanding Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the church season of Lent, a time when we prepare ourselves through reading scripture, prayer, and reflection—both communal and individual. During this season, we contemplate what necessitated our Lord Jesus Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday, and we look forward to the joy, confidence, and victory of his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Lent is characterized by quiet reflection and penitent prayerfulness.

The Context of Joel's Message

The prophet Joel speaks into a context of unprecedented crisis. His people faced an invasion by a plague of locusts unlike anything previously known. Just as Joel's people might have asked, "Where is God?" during that calamity, many of us have asked similar questions during 2020 and 2021—years that will become infamous and remembered by generations to come.

Yet Joel makes clear that God is not absent. Rather, he is active: "The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number and mighty is the army that obeys his command. The day of the Lord is great and dreadful—who can endure it?"

The Call to Return

In response to this awareness of God's judgment, Joel calls God's people to return to the Lord with all their hearts:

Even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God.

The Lord's call is not merely for outward repentance—a tearing of garments—but for a genuine transformation of the heart. This raises a fair question: Why return to a God who has been so active in sending judgment?

The Nature of God's Mercy

The answer lies in understanding God's true character. Judgment is the Lord's strange work; his natural work is mercy. This is why Joel continues:

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Perhaps God has sent these trials to wake us up—to call us to return to him wholeheartedly. If God is indeed shouting to us through the pandemic to come back to him, surely we should listen with weeping, mourning, and fasting, returning with all our hearts.

Practical Steps for Lent

What might this return look like? Consider these practices:

Confession and Reflection: Set aside five to ten minutes each day to confess your sins to the Lord—both things done and left undone, whether intentional or unintentional. Include individual sins, corporate sins, and the sins of our society.

Fasting: If you struggle to find time for prayer, why not skip a meal and use that time to pray to the Lord instead?

Beholding Jesus: After examining ourselves and confessing our sins, follow the wisdom to take ten looks at him for every look within. Spend time considering Jesus, the one who is gentle and lowly in heart. You might reread books like Gentle and Lowly, or go through one of the Gospels with pen and notebook, noticing all the ways Jesus demonstrates grace, compassion, patience, and love—and how he relents from calamity.

Hope and Confidence

As we return to the Lord during Lent, remember Joel's promise:

Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing.

Brothers and sisters, let us return to the Lord with all our hearts during this Lenten season. The promise is that our gracious and merciful God stands ready to receive us.