The year 2020 was fraught with global cataclysmic change and deep loss for millions. What might have begun as a puzzling curiosity soon became a crushing burden as we learned the proper way to put on a mask, what the phrase “social distancing” meant, and how to watch for statistics of deaths around the world. Even though we’re a good five years out from those early months of shock and anxiety, many of us are still trying to process through the losses we suffered and the changes we continually had to adapt ourselves to. Personally, I lost my 97-year-old mother that year, although not from Covid directly, and our family was unable to honor her with a memorial service. Even now, many of the consequences of a global pandemic remain with us.
And so, perhaps it was because I was accustomed to processing so many changes already, that I was open to attending an Ash Wednesday service, something I had never done before, although I had been a Christian for nearly fifty years. Think of that: fifty years and I’d honestly never even considered Ash Wednesday or really even thought seriously about the topic of the season of Lent before.
My daughter, Jessica, had invited me to attend an outdoor Ash Wednesday service with her at a local church. As the little group gathered outdoors on the patio, we each received personal containers of ashes, and then heard reminders of Christ’s death, the meaning of the forty days we were embarking upon, and the truth that is summed up in the phrase, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Shocking words. And yet, truthfully, in the light of the milieu of death we’d been surrounded by during this pandemic year, not as shocking as they once might have been. The pandemic had not only opened me up to attending an Ash Wednesday service. It had also opened my heart up to lament—to seeing, and then sitting in, a season of loss.
Although I’ve pretty much stopped wearing a mask and I don’t worry much about being in a crowd, the practice of remembering Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent has stuck with me. Now, instead of just moving past one celebration of Christmas and quickly into another celebration of the resurrection, Easter, I’ve learned to take time to lament and to think deeply about what it means to remember the sufferings of Jesus and my ultimate return back to the earth after my resurrection. I’ve learned not to hide from the brokenness around me and especially not from the brokenness within. This learning to lament is sacred; it is Spirit-breathed; it is eternal. And it is Christlike. Jesus understood lament; He is known as the Suffering Servant. If I claim to know and follow Him, my life should be marked by a seriousness about the brokenness and pain around me, and I should be willing to walk with him down the path to the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Now, I’m not saying that Lent has changed me from being positive and hopeful to negative and dour. I still laugh regularly. Nor am I filled with fear about the future nor hopelessness about the present. It is just that I am more aware of those words that were, and have been, spoken over me every Ash Wednesday since 2020: Elyse, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. In fact, in the 1600+ years since Ash Wednesday was first commemorated, millions of Christians around the world have been both encouraged and strengthened to stand in light of our finitude and an acquiescence to memento mori; they’ve learned to lament and worship and wait in hope.
It took a global pandemic to wake me up to the practice of lament and to its annual inauguration day, Ash Wednesday. It was on that day that the charred remains of last year’s Palm Sunday celebratory branches were smudged on my forehead in the form of a cross. In that very act, it was as though my mind was marked with a sacred reality: You will have times of celebration, and this is right. But you will also have times of lament, when you consider the suffering of Jesus in the wilderness and on the cross, and also when you consider the suffering around you. This learning to lament has not made me gloomy. In fact, it has made me hopeful.
And so, as we approach Lent this year, let me encourage you to walk into the ancient pathway trod by millions of your sisters and brothers throughout the ages. Yes, perhaps, the words, You are dust and to dust you shall return, will seem glum at first, but as you walk through the season, you’ll learn to embrace the beauty of lament and hope.
About Elyse Fitzpatrick
Elyse Fitzpatrick has written more than 25 books on daily living and the Christian life, including Because He Loves Me and Give Them Grace. She frequently speaks at national conferences and lives in Southern California with her husband of over 50 years. They have three adult children and six grandchildren. Elyse is a certified biblical counselor.
Elyse is a certified biblical counselor and frequent speaker at national conferences. Her new release, Friend of Sinners, offers readers a reflective Lenten journey that begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the empty tomb.
