The Rev’d Lucy Nguyen

Selwyn Church Wednesday 10:00am Service, 18 February 2026

Readings: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17, Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51:1-17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the season of Lent, for many Christian denominations. On this day, ashes are distributed as a sign of repentance, and a reminder of who we are. During the distribution of the ashes, the minister may say one of these two formulas:
• Repent and believe in the Gospel (Mk 1:15).
Or the more traditional formula.
• Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19).

Ash Wednesday serves as a powerful, physical reminder of our human mortality, our fragility, and the strength of life found in God’s love.

Recognizing our mortality can be rather haunting –
to be reminded that ultimately, at the end of the day,
anyone no matter who they are as popstar or layperson,
prime minister or voter, rich or poor,
we will all eventually return to dust.

However,
Ash Wednesday is not to serve as some morbid reminder of the inevitability of death and the brevity of human life,
but rather it is to direct us into a season of deep reflection on the quality of life we should live.

The readings of this day set the tone for the Season of Lent.
Lent is not a doom and gloom season.

Rather, as the readings suggest, it is a season of change,
• of repentance
• of prayer,
• of fasting and almsgiving (charitable works)

It is a season for these things to be carried out, not in a miserable, gloomy, dull, drab manner (Mt 6:16), but rather, in a spirit of humility and communally (Jl 2:16-17).

Every year we hear these particular readings because we need reminding, we need to pause and refresh.
We are human and we are frail and perhaps our habits have slipped over the past year.

• Our sense of joy in prayer, fasting and almsgiving may be waning, or simply become routine.
• We can forget or fail to recognize the importance of these acts beyond a dull sense that “this is what we do as Christians”.

Let us this morning, in the acts of this service of ashes and in this upcoming season of Lent find our Christian heart and the refreshment we need.

Today we are marked with the smudge of ash, dust – and, as Jan Richardson writes,

“We belong to the God who well knows what to do with dust,
who sees dust as a place to dream anew,
who creates from it again and again…

… Lent invites us to see what is most elemental in us,
what endures: the love that creates and animates, the love that cannot be destroyed, the love that is most basic to who we are.”

Repent and believe in the Gospel – a Gospel of love, forgiveness, and of new life.