“Mama, what is that black dirt on that man’s forehead?”

Perhaps your child has asked you this question on Ash Wednesday. If so, did you have trouble responding?

Many parents in non-liturgical, Pentecostal denominations have not grown up celebrating Ash Wednesday. Although I grew up in a liturgical, mainline church, the church I now attend does not practice the custom of placing ashes on people’s foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Many believers are unfamiliar with this practice.

So, what does placing ashes on the forehead actually mean?

Perhaps Ash Wednesday can best be described as a day of confrontation. A day to confront the truth of our sinfulness in the first Adam. That original sin brought death into the world–not only spiritual death, but also physical death.

The ashes placed on the forehead on Ash Wednesday are a reminder of that physical death. As Genesis 3: 19 reminds us: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Even more, the ashes are a reminder of the terrible spiritual effects of sin–eternal damnation: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6: 23).

But the ashes also represent the hope of resurrection. The hope that came in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. He came “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes” (Isaiah 61: 3).  Jesus came to restore us to the life He originally intended for all humanity before Adam and Eve sinned.

Ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday remind us of this great truth: In the first Adam, all die. In the second Adam, all live.
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Copyright 2018 by Dr. MaryAnn Diorio. All Rights Reserved. This article may not be reprinted or republished without the written permission of the author.

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