Are you ready to live?

You cannot really live until you are prepared to die. This is the message of the day observed in much of Christendom today: Ash Wednesday. 

People will attend services around the world today to "receive ashes." As the ashes are placed on the forehead of the worshipper, the minister will say, "You have come from dust, and to dust you will return." 

To be born is to die. No one gets out of this world alive. Of course, we do our best to avoid this inevitably. We watch what eat, we exercise, we dye our hair, we do all in our power to deter the reality of our mortality. 

Ash Wednesday launches the Christian season known as Lent. Lent is the forty days of preparation leading to Good Friday and Easter. Ash Wednesday reminds us that Lent is about the death of Jesus Christ. It sounds like Ash Wednesday is a day of sobriety and seriousness; it is except that this season does not end with death but with resurrection. 

You cannot really appreciate the power of the new life Jesus offers unless you understand that there is a death that makes possible the new life. You have to die to live! - Ron Friesen