Repented by Grace

Ash Wednesday 2024

Matthew 6

Isaiah 56:1-12

The fancy theological term for Ash Wednesday is “repent.” You will be impressed to know that the Greek word metanoia means to turn away or reorient. Today is when we, as Christ’s body, repent, with the help of spiritual disciplines, God’s grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit to turn away from our sin and back toward God. And it is in repenting that we find the Good News of this day.

It is not that we repent on our own. If it were entirely up to us, we would not need to repent because we would be unable to see that we are indeed caught in the snares of sin. We would be unable to see how we have sinned against God and one another. We would not be caught off guard when Ash Wednesday and Lent appear on the calendar.

The grace of God repents us. God’s prevenient grace – grace that goes before us – helps us to begin to see where and how our sin is at odds with God’s cosmic plans for creation. God’s grace is at work in your life even when days like Ash Wednesday sneak up on you. The season of Lent – through the adoption of a Lenten practice and heeding the words of Christ – is one of the ways God is repenting us, pulling us from the snares of sin, and sanctifying us, making us more and more like Christ.