‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and believe the good news of the Gospel.’

These are words from the service held in many Christian churches at the start of the season of Lent.  It is traditional to receive a sign of the cross on the forehead made in ash by burning crosses from the previous Palm Sunday: an outward visible sign of our weakness within.  So what is Lent, and why is it important?  The word Lent comes from an old English word meaning ‘Lengthen’, which makes sense in the northern hemisphere where the days are gaining more daylight in the period before Easter.  Lent marks the period of 40 days which lead to Easter, days which ask us to remember Jesus’ time in the wilderness in prayer and fasting before he started his ministry.  It also recalls the time (in years rather than days) that the Israelites spent in exile.  In the southern hemisphere of New Zealand, Ash Wednesday confronts us in a different way; we are heading slowly out of summer towards autumn.  As a teenager, I remember feeling pretty safe in the world: I was secure at home, had good friends, a sense that world peace was achievable, and life was good.  For sure, I also experienced a heady mix of anxiety, self-doubt and peer pressure.  But I do recall one Ash Wednesday, receiving the sign of the cross marked in ash on my forehead and being stunned into silence by the words quoted above. 

It was but a momentary silence, perhaps no more than a breath, but I remember it because it put me firmly in my place.  I came from dust, and one day, dust would be all that was left of me, but in that unknown space in-between I had an opportunity to place my life in God’s hands and to experience the adventure of the Gospel. 

Ash Wednesday presents us with the invitation to journey once more with Jesus in the wilderness.  But this is not a journey that goes on and on without end, it is a journey in the shadow of the cross towards the light of the resurrection.  And at its end, we are in place where we can look forward in that resurrection light, surely knowing that next year we will be here again, but somehow different – different in age, different in the experience of the weeks and months of our lives, and different because we have lived in the light of Jesus who is always transforming our lives even when we do not know it or cannot even see it.

+Helen-Ann Waikato

​This reflection was first published in 'Come Alive' Magazine, a New Zealand online resource for youth ministry.