“Return To The LORD With *All Your Heart!”*

“Return To The LORD With All Your Heart!”(Jl.2:12-19).
Today is Ash Wednesday. Christians would receive ash on their foreheads to mark the beginning of Lent season. Ash Wednesday, like many other traditions of Christianity originated in ancient Rome. Ash Wednesday is linked to Easter in that it marks the beginning of Lent season which ends on the triumph of the empty grave on Easter.
While Easter has its roots in the New Testament, Ash Wednesday began only around the 11th century AD. In this Roman Christian tradition, on Ash Wednesday sinners and penitents were dressed in sackcloth and were sprinkled with ashes to start their period of public penance on the first day of Lent. While it was not at first common in protestant traditions, it has now become a widespread practice in the Church universal. Of course, it is an age-old practice in some African tribes where ash is used in blowing away evil and also in mourning; especially when a woman’s husband dies. She rubs herself in ash as a sign of deep sorrow and great loss.
The use of ashes, coupled with prayers and fasting as a mark of penance is found in the book of Daniel. Daniel, after reading the book of Jeremiah understood that the Babylonian captivity would last for seventy years. Daniel “turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes” Daniel prayed to the Lord God and confessed…(Dan.9:2-4).
Christians receive ash on Ash Wednesday to mark the beginning of prayer and fasting for the confession of sins. During this period they also reflect on the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus Christ whose death brought God’s pardon on sinful humanity.
The call of prophet Joel for us to rend our hearts and not our garments, sets the tempo for the whole of the forty days of Lent. The Lord declares through Joel, “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Joel goes on to tell us, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love…”
The compassionate God may turn and have pity on us and spare us the wrath we have been passing through. A wrath that is now aggravated by the hike in the cost of basic essential commodities without a commensurate raise in salaries.
Dear friend, let us heed the call of Joel and seriously do what God wants us to do during this season of Lent. Let us return to him with all our heart; then the LORD will take pity on us. He will provide enough to satisfy us fully and he will never again make us objects of scorn.
Let us return to the LORD as individuals and as a collective.
Prayer: Holy Spirit guide us through this season of Lent to rend our hearts and not our garments. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.