Ash Wednesday

By Deacon Susan Godwin
Sermon given February 18, 2026

I have come to Ash Wednesday services for many years, 30 years as an adult Anglican/Episcopalian, and 17 childhood years as a Catholic. As a child, some years, I would brush away my short bangs to make sure everyone could see the cross of ashes, and other years, I covered up my forehead in hopes that my classmates wouldn’t look at me like I was different than everyone else.

Every year is unique for me… most of us are in very different seasons. Some years, I’ve started out Lent full of joy and hopeful for greater intimacy with God. Another year, following my husband’s death, I was still mourning, reeling with grief, and out of balance with life, and could barely make it to services.

For some of us, Ash Wednesday and Lent may be a very new practice. But no matter where we are emotionally, physically, or spiritually, the ashes today are a palpable reminder for all of us of our need for a life of repentance, for turning back to our Creator and knowing how desperate we are for God’s grace and salvation.

I am so grateful for the liturgical calendar, and where we are today as we enter into Lent with the imposition of ashes. The Church calendar is so countercultural to our society’s secular calendar. It gives structure to time in a way that operates outside or apart from empires, kingdoms and economic systems, which are linear and have a beginning, middle and an end. It’s not finite… it’s infinite. It functions more as a circle (as the Godly Play Circles shows the children where we are in the year and what we are celebrating), or a pulsar of circles, expanding and contracting in a rhythmic manner, very much like the heart and blood vessels.

We find pulsing circles in the Church calendar when we look at movement from the brilliant, radiant, indescribable life of Christ in the Transfiguration on the mountain, moving outward and then the inward movement to Christ’s journey to Jerusalem and the cross. So we shift from the bright light to the inward, darker journey of receiving ashes as a sign of our mortality and sinful nature, as well as carving out a space for quiet and solitude to listen to and hear from God, drawing near to the Lover of our souls.

So rather than following the linear structure of a secular calendar, which often reflects the stark opposite of our walk with Christ, the Church invites us to step out of the finite line and cross into the infinite story of God’s limitless creation, mercy, sacrificial love, and the story of redemption… that is our story.

The secular calendar has different seasons, different values, different heroes. It’s a different cycle of time; and so, if you’re like me, we often find it disruptive and even disorienting to fully enter into God’s time, into that circle. If you find it challenging to cross that threshold and leave behind the surrounding culture, whether it’s streaming entertainment, social media, or the constant noise of information overload, you are not alone. And that’s why we can often go through the motions, but resist entering fully into a time of quiet and introspection.

We are strengthened and encouraged by celebrating Lent as a church community collectively and individually, as 40 days of intentional spiritual preparation for Easter through sharing practices like fasting, study, prayer, silent retreats, and acts of charity.

So when we look at the purpose of Lent in the context of the Church calendar, we experience it as a season where we slow down enough to allow the Spirit to shed light on those hidden sins, the sins that so easily entangle us, even attitudes and thoughts, and intents — what we have done and what we have left undone — so that God’s Spirit would draw us to a place of self examination and repentance.

Today we are in a liminal space where God is calling us to leave behind the brilliant light of Christmas and Epiphany and pull of the world, and inviting us into a time and space of repentance and returning to God’s ways, recognizing our utter dependence on the grace of God and allowing ourselves to fall deeper into God’s love for us and all of humanity.

As a spiritual practice, we often look at the three pillars of prayer, fasting, and alms giving as a guide for Lent… or we can think of it as “giving up” and “giving out.” What that looks like for each of us may vary significantly, depending on our circumstances and seasons in life, but we have faith that God will meet each of us in the wilderness of our souls.

Today I’d like to look at our Old Testament text in Isaiah 58:1-12, where God gives us a clear picture of the kind of fasting and prayer that God wants, in order to bring us to a place of humility and honest repentance. The fruit of such a fast is “our light rising in the darkness,” as Isaiah prophesied in verse 10.

So, Isaiah’s cry is that God’s people would not only pray and fast, but also focus their hearts on alms giving, on extending the mercy and compassion that they and we have so freely received. (The root of the word “alms” can be found in ancient Latin and Greek words meaning mercy and pity.)

God was interested in touching and captivating the hearts of the Israelites, not in how well they performed their religious duties and practices. And today God is also seeking our hearts, not just our religious practices. The Lenten season and practices of giving, prayer and fasting are beautiful if they draw us closer to our Creator, God and Savior. And when these practices break down the barriers, the ways of the world that we build up, we are able by grace to draw closer to God. It is then natural that we have a desire to do what we see God doing (like Jesus - I only do what I see the Father doing.) In John 5:19-20, Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” When we give up those things that keep us from being quiet and still, we make room for God to do a deeper work in our hearts. We receive God’s mercy and grace, and we then have a desire to give out, extending that same mercy to our brothers and sisters.

In Is. 58:7, God says of the fast He has chosen, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”

This is where God through Isaiah gets really personal for me and starts messing with my sense of entitlement, my pride, my comfort, my convenience. Right where I live – food, shelter, bringing strangers actually into our homes, and covering the naked.We may not encounter someone who is physically naked, but we could have the opportunity to cover someone with love and mercy who is wounded and hurting, emotionally naked and ashamed. Or we may be able to extend hospitality to someone who is lonely and feels forgotten.

Lent is like a Spring Cleaning of the soul. During this introspection, will we hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness? Will we practice the discipline of fasting and prayer in order to bring our appetites under control, to slow down, and to listen to what God wants to tell us, so we can turn and draw near once again?

I’d like to close by reading our text from Isaiah slowly and deeply… Take a few deep, cleansing breaths. We ask that the Spirit of God would breathe on these words and quicken in our hearts a greater affection for God’s ways. Allow the Spirit to speak to your hearts about God’s desires for you this season of Lent.

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.