Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lent season. On Ash Wednesday, as God’s children we gather together to receive the imposition of Ashes. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we still live in a fallen world and we are part of this fallenness. But through the death and resurrection of Christ we can boldly and freely come to the throne of grace.

The service will focus of repentance, forgiveness, and grace. The readings include God’s call to return to Him, who we are in Christ and the Gospel story of the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus does not condemn but forgives her and asks her to sin no more.

The service will remind us that we are sinners, and we will be invited forward to receive the ashes on our forehead usually saying, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. As we pray, we will be called together as church, for God to open our eyes and that we can come to him to be honest and ask for repentance.We can come to him with our pain, sorrows and that He understands us.He knows because Christ, God himself in the flesh, walked through his own wilderness, and then walked beyond that to the cross.

May your Ash Wednesday be one in which God’s grace so comforts you, that you are able to freely acknowledge your failings and faults with the sure knowledge that you are his child, and He loves you.