Every year Ash Wednesday falls 46 days before Easter. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Christian season known as Lent.  Historically, Lent was a time when new Christians prepared themselves for baptism on Easter Sunday. Today, Lent more often is a time when Christians prepare themselves for Easter and are invited to grow closer to God through practice even more than a verbal commitment. This preparation happens through an emphasis on a few basic faith practices: worship, prayer, generosity, self-denial, and service to others. It starts with Ash Wednesday worship and ends with the celebration of Easter.

Lent is season for changing your life, for turning things around, for getting back on the right path, what we most often call, “repentance.” It lasts for 40 days (not counting Sundays which are always thought of a mini Easters); reminding us of the flooding rains of Noah’s time (Genesis 7:17-19), Israel wandering in the wilderness (Numbers 32:13), and of Jesus’ temptation in the desert (Mark 1:12-13).

During Lent at Eternal Rock, we worship at 7:00pm on Ash Wednesday and include an opportunity for the “Imposition of Ashes” (having a cross marked on your forehead from a mixture of palm branch ashes and olive oil). This is a reminder of our mortality. God created humankind from the dust of the earth, and it is to dust that we shall all return. “Remember you dust, and to dust you shall return” we are told. Our time on this earth is short. Every Lent, Christians around the world ask, “Am I living the life to which God has called me? Am I prepared to give an account for how I have spent our days? Is am entangled in specific sin that keeps me from growing closer to God?

Ash Wednesday isn’t exactly a cheerful celebration, bur for many Christians, it is their favorite season of the church year.  In world of speed and sound and lights and doing-we have a chance to contemplate in quietness the God we have and the forgiveness he offers.  

Tenebrae (Latin for "darkness") is a special service we celebrate on Good Friday. During this service, we gradually extinguishing seven candles and concluding with a  "strepitus" or "loud noise" taking place to symbolize the closing of Jesus’ tomb. During this service, we generally read Jesus’ last seven words from the cross and prophecies about his sacrifice. After the service, members exit in silence as we remember Jesus’ death for our salvation.

The Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week. This day remembers Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey to the jubilation of the crowds waving palm branches and laying down their coats in a show of respect.  For centuries, many churches around the world also celebrate this Sunday as Passion Sunday. On this day, the congregation remains outside the sanctuary doors and all enter as one at the beginning of worship. In this sense, we get a feel of the joy of the first Palm Sunday and a feel of Holy Week as we read through the passion account (Jesus suffering and death as recorded in the gospels).  This is a special service to help us fully contemplate what Jesus has done for each of us.

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