The Meaning of Ash Wednesday

The month of September is the holiest time of the year for Jews. That’s when they usually celebrate the New Year. Which is called Rosh
Hashanah. And then, there’s ten days of self examination. When you look at
your life. You confess all your sins from the past year. And then on the
tenth day, you ask God for forgiveness. That tenth day is called Yom Kippur.
I always liked Yom Kippur. Because I got two days off of school! Mom would
say, "Remember Marc: No school tomorrow. It’s Yom Kippur. Time to repent of
your sins." I would be like "Woo hoo!" But for a religious Jew, this is a
very holy time.

Lent is a lot like that. The only difference is that instead of ten days of
self examination. You get 40. That’s because Gentiles sin 4 times more often
than Jews do. And you guys need all the extra time you can get to get things
straightened out (just kidding).

Does anyone know how Lent got started? It’s not in the Bible. There is no
verse that says "Thou shalt celebrate Lent."

But around 230 AD, a group of Christians started fasting for the 40 hours
leading up to Easter. To prepare their hearts for Easter. Pretty soon, the
idea caught on. Years later, they bumped it up to 7 days of fasting. And
they called it Holy Week. And by 325 AD, the church officially made it 40
days.

Maybe you’re thinking, "Sorry, pastor. But there’s no way in heck that I’m
going to fast for 40 days. That’s just out of the question. It’s not going
to happen."

And my answer is "That’s OK!" God is more concerned about what’s in your
heart than he is about what’s in your refridgerator. In Mark 7:18-20, Jesus
says that it’s not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean. It’s
what comes out of your heart." The secret sins in your life that you can’t
quit. The grudges that you can’t let go. An issue you can’t resolve.

The fact of the matter is that no one’s perfect. Romans 3:23 says that "For
all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God."

And that’s why Ash Wednesday is such a good thing. It’s a chance for us to
come clean. To clear the air between us and God. To repent of our sins.

I was reading about Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He was the leading abortion
doctor in the United States. He performed 75,000 abortions. He thought he
was doing the right thing. Because he believed that a woman had the right to
do what she wanted with her own body.

But something changed all that. In 1976, they invented the ultrasound. So
that you could see the baby inside the womb. The first time he saw an
ultrasound, he was with some other doctors in training. On the monitor, he
saw the baby’s heart beating. And when the technician zoomed the camera in,
he could see that all four chambers of the heart were pumping blood.

And that’s when Dr Nathanson came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
He said, "O my God, that’s not a fetus. That’s a baby!!!! I’ve been killing
babies! God, I’m so sorry."

And then he wrote an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the
article, he said, "In abortion, we are taking life. That fetus is not mere
tissue. It is human life!"

And not only was Dr Nathanson sorry for all of the abortions he performed.
But he made a decision never to perform one ever again. And since that time,
he has been active in the pro life movement. And years later, he accepted
Jesus Christ as his personal