A BIBLICAL LOOK AT WHAT ASHES REPRESENT

Do we know the meaning of ashes, and the significance of putting ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday?   

The notes below are taken from a talk on Ash Wednesday by Dr Brant Pitre

(Dr Brant Pitre is an American New Testament scholar and Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute)

Link to the Youtube recording is at the end of this post.

THE JEWISH ROOTS OF ASHES

1       SYMBOL OF MORTALITY

In Gen 3:19, God says to Adam after he committed a sin, "...you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  

Ashes is a symbol of mortality.  After the fall, we are now subject to suffering and death.  Every human is mortal, and we go back after our death to a state of dust and ashes.

 

2      SYMBOL OF REPTENANCE FROM SIN

Joel 42:6 "therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  

Here, there is another layer of meaning, not only does dust symbolises mortality, but ashes and dust also symbolises repentance from sin.

3      INTERCESSION

Daniel 9:3, "Then I turned to the Lord God to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes."

Here Daniel is praying and interceding for his people. Although he is a righteous man himself, he does penance for his people. And he expresses that penance is through fasting, sackcloth and ashes.

 

1 Macabees 3:47 "They fasted that day, put on sackcloth and sprinkled ashes on their heads, and tore their clothes."

Gives us the origin of the images of ashes not just on the body, but on the heads. They do not just fast and pray, the put ashes on their heads, as a symbol of repentance and sin.

 

Esther 14:1-3 "And Esther the queen, seized with deathly anxiety, fled to the Lord; 2 she took off her splendid apparel and put on the garments of distress and mourning, and instead of costly perfumes she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she utterly humbled her body, and every part that she loved to adorn she covered with her tangled hair. 3 And she prayed to the Lord God of Israel."

Esther even as queen covered herself in ashes and dung as she intercedes intensely for her people.

 

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The things that ancient Jews would do when entering a particular intense period of prayer, repentance of sin and supplication

• to wear sackcloth (uncomfortable), 
• fast (abstinence from food and drink) 
• and covering themselves in ashes.

Jesus himself recognises this practice of ashes as an outward sign of inward repentance.  

Mat 11:21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Ashes on forehead is the recognition of

• our mortality (like Adam),
• repentance for our sin (like Joel) and
• interceding for others (like Daniel and Esther)

- uniting our intense time of prayer to a period of fasting and supplication to God,
- drawing closer to God by detaching ourselves from the pleasures of this world,
- in particular food, and drink as well as the pleasure of bodily adornment.

Link to Dr Pitre's talk on Youtube
The notes above are extracted from time period 0:00 to11:00
The Biblical Roots of Ash Wednesday