Lenten Liturgies: Ash Wednesday Through Holy Week

Leader: Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. People: We turn. Leader: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God. People: We turn. Leader: For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. All: We turn, because he is like that.

Original, with Joel 2:12-13 (KJV)

Friends, we begin tonight a season of forty days. The church has always used this season for four things: honest self-examination, prayer, fasting, and giving. Not to earn anything. God is not withholding his love pending your performance in March. We do it because we are people who forget what we are, and Lent is forty days of remembering. You are dust. You are loved. Both are true, and you will not understand Easter until you have sat with the first one. I invite you, therefore, to the observance of a holy Lent.

Original

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. [Traditional alternative, said as the ashes are marked:] Repent, and believe the gospel.

Genesis 3:19 (KJV); Mark 1:15 (KJV); traditional imposition formula

God of dust and breath, bless these ashes, and bless the foreheads they are going on. These are the palms we waved last year, burned down to what they always were. Let them tell us the truth about ourselves without letting us despair of it, because you have never yet been put off by anything you made from the ground. Amen.

Original

Almighty God, we have spent a year avoiding this sentence: we are going to die. We have filled the time with noise so we would not have to hear it. We have stored up what we cannot keep. We have defended what we cannot hold. We have called our fear ambition and our avoidance rest. Mark us tonight with the truth. And in these forty days turn us back to you, that we may lose our lives and find them. Amen.

Original

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Isaiah 58:6-7 (KJV)

Leader: We are in the wilderness weeks. People: We came here hungry, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Leader: Jesus went into the wilderness before he went anywhere else. People: Then the wilderness is not a detour. Leader: Come, all who are giving something up, and all who have had something taken. All: We come. Lead us through.

Original

Leader: Hosanna to the son of David! People: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! Leader: Hosanna in the highest! People: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! Leader: Wave your branches. Shout while you can. All: For by Friday this same crowd will have changed its mind.

Original, with Matthew 21:9 (KJV)

Jesus said: If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. [As each person is washed:] Jesus washed the feet of the man who was about to betray him. There is nothing you have done that puts you outside this basin.

John 13:14-15 (KJV), with an original charge

[Read while the table, the paraments, and the candles are removed in silence. No commentary.] My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. [The congregation leaves in silence. There is no benediction.]

Psalm 22:1-2 (KJV), with an original rubric

He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:3-5 (KJV)

[After each of the seven readings, a candle is extinguished and the room says:] Leader: Were you there? People: We were there. We are there still. [After the last candle:] Leader: It is finished. [Silence. A loud sound. The congregation leaves without a word, and without a blessing. The story is not over, but tonight it is not our turn to say so.]

Original, with John 19:30 (KJV)

God of the in-between, today there is nothing to do. The body is in the tomb. The disciples are behind a locked door. The women are counting hours until they can work. We know how this ends and they did not, and there are people in this church tonight who are living in Saturday and cannot see Sunday from where they are. Sit with them. You are good at Saturday. Amen.

Original

Go into these forty days. May the God who led Israel through the wilderness lead you. May Christ, who was hungry and was tempted and did not fold, walk with you. And may the Spirit turn what you are giving up into room for something you have needed for years. Amen.

Original

You are dust. You are loved. Go home, wash your face or do not, and begin.

Original

What is Ash Wednesday?

The first day of Lent, forty-six days before Easter. Congregations gather, usually in the evening, for a service of confession in which ashes are marked on the forehead in the shape of a cross with the words "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return". The ashes are traditionally made by burning the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday.

What do you say when imposing ashes?

The traditional sentence is "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return", drawn from Genesis 3:19. The common alternative is "Repent, and believe the gospel", from Mark 1:15. Say the same words to every person, in the same way, and add the person's name if you know it. Do not improvise at the imposition.

How long is Lent?

Forty days, not counting Sundays, which is why the calendar span from Ash Wednesday to Easter is forty-six days. The forty echoes Israel's forty years in the wilderness and Jesus's forty days of temptation. Sundays are excluded because every Sunday, including in Lent, is a celebration of the resurrection.

What is Maundy Thursday?

The Thursday of Holy Week, remembering the last supper. The name comes from the Latin mandatum, "commandment", from Jesus's words in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another". Services typically include communion, often a footwashing, and frequently end with the stripping of the altar and a departure in silence with no benediction.

What should I give up for Lent?

Something that will actually create space rather than something that will make you thinner or more impressive. The historic disciplines are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and the strongest Lenten practices pair a subtraction with an addition: give up an hour of screens and read scripture in it, give up eating out and give the money away.

What colors are used during Lent?

Purple or violet for the season, signifying penitence and royalty. Some churches use unbleached linen or sackcloth instead for a starker effect. Good Friday is black or bare, and Palm Sunday is often red, marking the passion. Easter changes to white or gold, which is much of the point.

Do Protestants have to observe Lent?

No. The church year is a useful tradition, not a command, and a number of Protestant traditions have deliberately not observed it. The pastoral case for keeping it is simply that most congregations have no other structured season for self-examination, and Easter lands harder on people who have spent six weeks looking honestly at themselves.