For Ash's Sake or Our Sake?

I am reminded once again how important it is to read and study the Scriptures in an age where you can pretty much make up a religion and follow it, or not.

Yesterday, it was Ash Wednesday or Lent according to Roman Catholicism. This practice (that has somehow aligned itself with Jesus' Wilderness experience for 40 days and 40 nights and His action of fasting) whereby Catholics receive ashes on their foreheads while making a sign of the cross to observe Jesus' wilderness experience for 40 days and 40 nights. In addition, they make a solemn attempt to sacrifice something for the same duration of time that Jesus walked in the wilderness and are reminded of where they come from; "...for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19).

Now before I continue, I would like to say that I once ignorantly followed this practice many years ago out of not knowing, reading, and studying the Scriptures. It both angers and saddens me to see people who have yet to taste and experience the love, grace, mercy, redemptive, and liberating saving power of Jesus follow this practice. It angers me because while those in hierarchical church authority have the Scriptures, they have not shared the true gospel of the Lord Jesus that sets humanity free from obeying religious practices to somehow earn "Jesus points," or feel that they have done something good while the prophet Isaiah says, " But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags..." (Isaiah 64:6). In addition, they do not encourage them to read the Scriptures nor teach them how. How can they if their eyes have not been open by the Holy Spirit?

It saddens me because while the practices of discipline, fasting, and remembering where we came from is honorable, isn't this something that can be observed every day we draw breath or just for the next 40 days and 40 nights? And without the Holy Spirit living in their lives how can they accomplish this? Jesus Himself taught and stated that when you fast, "...do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:16-18). In regards to discipline, how can they exercise spiritual discipline with mere natural strength? Remembering where you come from and where you're going is a sobering thought...for the body, but what happens to the soul once your body gives out is all the more important (Matthew 10:28).

All to say that I am called to love people as our Lord graciously and willingly did, hence the cross, for everyone. This beckons me to not only read and study the Scriptures but to tell others in love and with a sincere concern for their eternal destination that redemption, forgiveness, and freedom does not come from vain and repetitive religious practices but through knowing that Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man did it all, that "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).