Leaning into Lent, Ash Wednesday Marks and Fish Symbols

I still remember when I received my first Ash Wednesday mark—a simple cross on my forehead drawn with ashes.

On that first day of Lent, I was 21 years old, a senior in college, and brand-new in having a real, honest-to-goodness relationship with Jesus. I had grown up in a loving church—attending services with my family every week, enthusiastically singing in the choir, going to every youth event—but for whatever reason it wasn’t personal. I believed in God, but the whole “Jesus thing” (as I put it) didn’t make sense to me.

Fast forward to my freshmen year of college and God plugging me in with some wonderful friends who were devoted Catholics. They walked the talk and followed this Jesus I didn’t really know. They heard I missed singing and invited me to join them in the Sunday morning praise band that led worship for every Mass.

“But I’m Protestant, not Catholic,” I said. (I had taken enough World History to know the difference.)

“The priest is fine with it! Come join us,” they urged.

That is how God kept me in church every Sunday all through college, learning, growing in community, until the day in January of my senior year that I went on an Encounter with Christ retreat (a quite evangelical Catholic retreat experience), and actually met Jesus for myself.

I bounced around like I was ten feet off the ground for weeks. My friends who were already long-time Christians were amused and indulgent at the excitability of the several of us who had come to know Jesus personally. We called it “The Encounter High.” I can still remember what happened after the very next Mass, when the homily was on the parable of the prodigal son.

It was like all the lightbulbs turned on in my brain. My friends had arrived at the student cafeteria for lunch before I did, and I literally ran to their table crying, “I get it!!  I get it!!  The father in the story is God and the prodigal is me!!!”

As you can imagine, they were highly amused, even as they enjoyed watching the bible come alive for me.

So that’s the context for my first Lent as a follower of Jesus, which came just two weeks after the retreat when I walked up to the priest, and he drew the cross in ash on my forehead.

The purpose of the forty days of Lent in many Christian traditions is one of repentance and fasting as we reflect on the suffering of Jesus for us. But that day, as I walked around campus, and noticed people noticing that cross on my forehead, I was first struck by something else: This new, inward, faith had outward implications. People could see that I was declaring a belief system. It dawned on me that if I behaved poorly, it would reflect poorly not just on me but on Jesus.

Yikes.

Are we willing to make a public declaration?

That concept is something I have (that many of us have!) wrestled with. When we go to our son’s football practice wearing a ballcap with a Christian saying or when we put a scripture on our desk at work, it declares something we have to try to live up to. After I graduated from college, was working on Capitol Hill, and attending a wonderful, bible-teaching church in Washington, D.C., I still remember my church friends and I wrestling with whether we should put fish symbol magnets or Christian bumper stickers on the backs of our cars. We were mostly impatient drivers and realized it probably wasn’t the best idea to cut people off in traffic while sporting a Love is Patient, Love is Kind bumper sticker.

But then we decided we had to put that fish symbol or the Christian message on our car, for two reasons. And they are the same two reasons I hope every follower of Jesus, of every denomination and tradition will consider making some outward expression of their faith this Lent—whether it’s an Ash Wednesday mark, a faith description in your social media bio, an “In God We Trust” license plate on your car or something else.

Reason #1: The public declaration keeps us accountable

The cross drawn physically on our forehead (or some other public expression) is just an outward representation of the difference that began inside when we invited Jesus into our lives. And for those who get an Ash Wednesday mark, you know there’s nothing like walking around all day with that physical cross of ashes to concentrate our thoughts on whether we are alsodisplaying the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 gives quite the list of what others should see in us: “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

So… Is that statement true? Am I showing love to others today? Am I joyful even when things didn’t go the way I wanted? Am I patient with the exasperating coach who benched my child?

The start of Lent is just one day. But it is one day that we can ask ourselves: Do my outward actions match my inner relationship with Christ and the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in me?

Reason #2: To remind us of what we need to repent of

Because we are all sinful people in need of God’s grace, the honest answer to the question I just posed will always be no. Always. Now, don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying we never show the fruit of the Spirit! It’s just that our sinful human nature will always there, too. So, we try to be patient and kind, but inevitably there will be times we get angry and we’ll snap at the kids. We try to exercise self-control, but because we think we know better than our spouse we end up trying to control them instead.

When I walk around with a cross on my forehead on Ash Wednesday—or around my neck the rest of the year—it forces me to remember how much selfishness there is in me, how much repentance and change is needed … and just how much Jesus did for me out of immense, mind-blowing, unconditional love. Maybe some of you are nodding your head because you can relate. God has forgiven us of so much.

But if it has been a while since you’ve reflected on those things or grappled with what Jesus has done for you, you can use this next forty days as an opportunity to draw close to Him. If you aren’t sure what a personal relationship with Jesus even means, CRU and other ministries have some great articles you might want to look at: https://www.cru.org/us/en/how-to-know-god.html.

During Lent, many believers fast from certain types of food or other things that they often rely on (social media, the latest binge-watch show) in order to remind themselves of the suffering Jesus endured and prompt them to turn their thoughts to Him repeatedly in repentance and desire for change.

Whether you’re new to my blog community or you’ve been with me for years, my prayer for you this week, and for the next forty days, is that you’ll walk in the truth of this scripture:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame …

So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, 12-13 NLT)

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