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Ash Wednesday and Lent: A History of a Tradition

© Pastor Roger Huffman

Q: Exactly what is Ash Wednesday? I know it's the beginning of Lent. But beyond that? What does the word mean other than putting ashes on your head and forehead in preperation for Lent? The other question I have is why is Lent 6 weeks long? Could we not prepare in the same way in say 3 weeks like we do for Advent? On Ash Wednesday we read part of the Passion history and then a few weeks later we read the same portion again.

A: You have good reasons for being confused. We have kept the name of the day, but until recently, most (if not all) Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) congregations have considered the imposition of ashes as Roman (ie. Catholic).

In the WELS (from my experience of a 50-year lifetime) Lent has been made into a prolonged Holy Week/Passion observance. This is perfectly fine (who can dispute the value of spending six midweek services focusing on the heart of our faith - Christ's Passion?), but it is not the historic purpose of Lent.

A study of the historic role of Lent is most enlightening and reveals its strong evangelical (gospel-centered) roots.

Lent is a season of 40 days, not including the Sundays. (That's why we call them the Sundays in Lent, not of Lent.) It's a 40-day time of preparation for the Great celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Every Sunday celebrates our Lord's resurrection, even the ones in Lent.

This 40-day observance goes back to the early church, when adult converts were brought into the faith, after being instructed in the faith. They were taught the Creed and given training (2 Tim 3:16,17) to help the convert put off the old way of life they learned as pagans and put on the new way of life that flows from being set free from sin's control of your purpose, motives, attitudes and daily agenda. The new converts (Catechumen) were all baptized on Easter, at the Easter Vigil. This emphasized and celebrated the truth that in our baptism we are buried with Christ and raised with him to live a new life.

In final preparation for their baptism and welcoming into the communing community, each Catechumen was paired with a believer and tested in the 40 days leading up to the Easter Vigil. The disciplines of Lent were evangelically motivated (not done as church law) to prepare them for the new life - especially when it was not easy to be a Christian - both because of persecution and because of pagan temptations.

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