Ash Wednesday: What Is Ash Wednesday? How Do We Observe It? Why Should We?

February 21, 2012 by Mark D. Roberts

What is Ash Wednesday?

What is Ash Wednesday? For most of my life, I didn’t ask this question, nor did I care about the answer. I, along, with most evangelical Christians in America, didn’t give Ash Wednesday a thought.

But then, in 2004, Ash Wednesday loomed large in American Protestant consciousness. Why? Because on that day Mel Gibson released what was to become his epic blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. For the first time in history, the phrase “Ash Wednesday” was on the lips of millions of evangelical Christians, not just Catholics and other “high church” Protestants, as we anticipated the official release of The Passion. Every since 2004, many who never wondered about Ash Wednesday have been asking: What is Ash Wednesday? How do we observe it? Why should we observe it?

For the rest of this column, click here.

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pam lee-miller

mark,
thanks for your comments today—I search Ash Wednesday and you popped up….I miss the church today—left a few months ago, pulled my papers and haven’t been back—–liturgical times always bring up grief for me–I loved the pegs they gave us to move forward. anyway, i loved your sharing about your son Nathan, nothing reminds us more about the fragility of life and our call to live fully into the creature we were created to become than staring life and hope and fragility in the face and remembering—from dust we came and to dust we shall return……………..blessings to you this morning. Pam http://www.pleemiller.blogspot.com radical ramblings and thoughts of a southern girl.