Day 1 (Ash Wednesday) - Feb 22, 2023; Feb 14, 2024; Mar 5, 2025
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ -1 Peter 3:21
It’s Ash Wednesday, a day where many Christians are called into a time of repentance, fasting, and prayer. We come forward and get an ashen cross placed upon our head - a visible sign of this calling and the movement of the season towards Holy Week.
We often read on this day from the prophet Joel. God through the prophet tells us to “return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12) and to “rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:13) because the problem is far deeper than our clothes and our skin. That is, human sin is more than a mere blemish that can be scrubbed away. In classical prophetic style he reminds us that repentance is not mere doing of outward religious rituals because mere outward fixing of things simply won’t do. The corruption of sin has dug deep into our hearts and will eventually return us to dust and ashes. "[Y]ou are dust," God says to Adam, "and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19). If the ash placed on our heads reminds us of this, the cross reminds us that in Jesus God has gone just as far to save us when he died on the cross. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23).
This reading today from Peter says that baptism proclaims that Christ’s saving power has run just as deep in us as this sinful corruption. Our first word on baptism this season says that baptism is more than an outward washing, a mere “removal of dirt from the body”. Baptism is not just an outward ritual. It’s work is more than skin deep, and that's good news because our need is more than skin deep. On Ash Wednesday we are confronted with the depth of sin’s effect on the entire human condition. Today also, therefore, we remember the depth of baptism’s power. It “now saves you”. Like Joel speaking of the need for repentance to run all the way to the heart because the corruption has, Peter speaks of baptism’s ability to run just as deep by granting us a "good conscience" through Jesus.
It's telling you then the story of the cross and resurrection. However far, however deep, whatever the length sin and death has gone to get a strangle-hold of you, Christ has gone just as far to win you back.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. In your boundless compassion, blot out my offenses. Create in me a clean heart, put a new and right spirit within me. As you have promised in my baptism, save me and give me a clean conscience. All for Christ's sake, Amen.
This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.
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