What connection is there between Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day? Well, “today” for starters. This hasn’t happened since 2018. It has happened three times in the last century – 1923, 1934 and 1945 – and will happen again in 2029 for the final time this century! At my church, we’ll be reflecting on some powerful connections between the “love” themes of Valentine’s Day and the themes of penitence and repentance inherent in Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent. I encourage you to join your church family tonight, too!
Both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday are equally old. The roots of Valentine’s Day grow out of part history and part legend, all the way back to the ancient Roman Empire. It’s said that Emperor Claudius II forbid soldiers to marry. Claudius reasoned that married men made poor fighting men. He didn’t want his soldiers to be preoccupied with thoughts of their wives and children.
But a certain bishop of the Church, Valentine was his name, defied the emperor and secretly joined roman soldiers and their fiancée’s in holy matrimony. However, when Claudius found out, he had Valentine arrested and imprisoned. While he was in prison, it’s said he befriended his jailer, healed the jailer’s daughter and the whole household converted to Christianity. Of course, this would have been the final straw for Emperor Claudius, who was well known as a persecutor of Christians.
So, what we do know for sure (well, kinda-sorta) is that on February 14th of 270 AD, Claudius had Valentine put to death. It’s said that right before his execution, Valentine wrote a letter to the Jailer and his family and titled it “your Valentine.” Supposedly this is where the tradition of giving a “valentine” to someone we love came from. Today, Valentine’s Day is a time for husbands & wives, boyfriends & girlfriends, to celebrate their love for one another with cards, flowers and gifts. But isn’t it interesting that the myths and history behind it have more to do with martyrdom and sacrifice?
The roots of Ash Wednesday are even older. As far back as the 11th century, this day has marked the beginning of the somber, 40-day period of Lent—with the custom of daubing the foreheads of worshipers with palm ashes.
On Ash Wednesday each year, Christians take the dried and desiccated palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday and burn those to make the ashes. These palm branches were used to remember the day our Lord was received into Jerusalem with open arms and the singing of hosannas. On that first Palm Sunday, the people wanted Jesus to be their Messiah, their Savior, their King. But only a few days later, their welcome and their hosannas turned into shouts to crucify Him. The palms that were waved to honor Him and the cloaks that were spread on the streets before Him were traded for a roman whip and an old rugged cross.
So, what an interesting tradition to take those palms—which represent hollow and hypocritical praise for Jesus—and burn them to ashes and mark ourselves with that ash. Because, even though we weren’t the ones who turned on Jesus 2000 years ago, are we any less guilty of betraying and dishonoring the one we claim as our own Savior and King?
How often do we go to church to worship and sing our Lord’s praises and commit ourselves to following Him and serving Him, only to go back to our Monday-through-Saturday lives to live any way we want? We may not call out for Jesus to be crucified like the people of Jerusalem, but too often and too easily we willfully engage in sin—the very sin that caused our Lord’s suffering.
Thus, the palm ashes that are used on Ash Wednesday are a sign of our repentance. But they are just a sign. There’s nothing commanded in scripture about this. Yet, what a poignant way to begin a season of repentance and reflection. That’s the heart of Ash Wednesday.
Furthermore, the custom of putting on ashes goes back even further than the early church and even farther back than the Roman Empire—it goes all the way back to the Old Testament times, when people would show their sorrow and mourning and repentance by wearing sackcloth and covering their entire head with ashes. We hear of this again and again, all throughout the Old Testament.
There are some 50 verses in the Old Testament that mention sackcloth and ashes. Perhaps the most notable example is in the book of Jonah. In the third chapter, we learn that after Jonah proclaims the coming destruction of the city of Nineveh, the Assyrian King orders every person and every animal in the city to wear sackcloth and ash as a sign of repentance. “Who knows?” says the king, “Perhaps God may relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
The king’s words should probably serve as an example for us! It’s probably for this reason that, traditionally, Ash Wednesday serves as the door to the season of Lent. It begins a 40 day time for Christians to look inward, to examine ourselves to see what is wrong and what needs to be put right, and the imposition of ashes on the forehead is an ancient act of devotion to aid us in thinking soberly about ourselves. To remind us of the reality of the curse God first spoke to Adam – “Dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Tonight, the ashes that will be placed on our foreheads will be imposed there in the shape of a cross—the mark of sacrifice and death and yet also the mark of mercy and grace. At my church, we moisten the ashes with water from the baptismal font, a reminder that in our baptism God has washed us and claimed us. He’s made us His own despite our sinful, self-centered ways. He loves us!
Thus, Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day really do go well together. The ashen cross upon our foreheads will serve as a valentine from God. It’s not because we earned it. It’s not my love for God or my devotion to God that changes anything. Not even my best efforts to rise from the ashes and be a better me. No! His love for me in Christ is the reason. Love given not with a dozen roses or a Hallmark card, but with the most loving act of all – that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
O Lord, open my lips... 