If Union Presbyterian Church were to adopt a motto for the way it has chosen to observe Ash Wednesday since 2017, it might not be unlike that of the U.S. Postal Service.
Presbyterians and millions of other Christians left Ash Wednesday services looking and feeling different — and it wasn’t just the ashen crosses they were sporting on their foreheads, a reminder of the dust by which they were created and the dust to which they will return.
The tenor of Lent is one of “complicated joy,” according to the Rev. Carlton Johnson, Associate Director for Theology, Formation & Evangelism for the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
Given the state of the world, particularly in Ukraine, encouraging preachers to stretch into prophetic preaching seems timely, even during this season of repenting and walking with Jesus to the cross.
Journey to the Cross, the devotional series for Lent, returns to the devotional website and app d365.org beginning on Ash Wednesday, March 2, and continuing through Easter Sunday on April 17.
For three social justice-focused Presbyterian churches in Orange County, California, Ash Wednesday will look different this year. But its meaning may be even more profound and deeply felt than in pre-pandemic times.
After a simple and beautiful Ash Wednesday service, worshipers left the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center nourished by the Lord’s Supper and marked with ashes imposed on their foreheads.
For Ray Jones, the acting director for Theology, Formation and Evangelism, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a personal journey, as it does for Christians around the world, into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
