By Rev. Kelsey Hutto, guest columnist
Every year Christians around the world recognize and adhere to a season called Lent. Lent is a period of reflection and fasting as spiritual preparation to grow closer to God.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year, Ash Wednesday is March 1.
The solemn practices that occur on Ash Wednesday bring the focus back to the sacrifice of Christ and the mission of the Church. The heart of Ash Wednesday is a humbling of oneself through fasting and prayer.
On this day, Christians come before a pastor to receive the sign of the cross marked in ashes on their foreheads.
This ceremony originated around the eighth century and extends back to the custom during biblical times of people humbling themselves with sackcloth and ashes.
This year in Brown County we are bringing Ash Wednesday to the streets. St. David’s in Bean Blossom, Nashville United Methodist and Parkview Church of the Nazarene are joining together to offer Ashes-to-Go.
The imposition of ashes serves as our invitation to repentance and a response to our encounter with the Word of God. Ashes-to-Go moves the encounter with and that invitation to repentance out of the church building into the spaces of everyday life where we live out our response to God.
You can find us at one of three spots: outside the Hob Nob, the parking lot across from McDonald’s and the Brown County Public Library.
As an added incentive, the Hob Nob is offering free coffee to anyone who receives ashes outside the restaurant. Look below for times.
God’s people are out in the streets, the offices and stores, not just in our churches.
Ashes, as a reminder of our mortality and a call to repentance, belong to the public spaces and the daily work of our lives, not just to the times and spaces of the regular worshiping community.
We are following in the steps of Jesus — maybe not precisely (Jesus didn’t impose ashes in the street), but going out into the streets to find, teach and heal the people who weren’t “in church” was exactly what Jesus did.
If you aren’t ready or able to come to church, then the church is willing and able to come to you with God’s invitation to relationship, repentance and healing.
Please stop by and see us.
•8 to 9:30 a.m. Hob Nob restaurant, corner of Van Buren and Main streets
•10 to 11:30 a.m. Brown County Public Library, East Gould Street
•Noon to 1:30 p.m. Parking lot across from McDonald’s, Hawthorne Drive
The Rev. Kelsey Hutto is the priest at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom.
