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Ash Wednesday
    Today marks the beginning of the church season of Lent, the forty day long period of penitence, fasting, and prayer that leads us to the remembrance and celebration of the two most important events in the story of Christianity, Jesus’ death and resurrection. May all of us that these next forty days to remember, repent, and focus our eyes upon our Savior and our Salvation. Amen.
    It is important for us as Christians, especially in this time of Lent, to remember that there was nothing that any of us could do, even by upholding the law, to earn our way into heaven. Even our single most perfect and penitent acts fall short of the requirements that we uphold all of the law all of the time. Because of this failure, really because we do not even desire in our flesh to uphold the law, we are eternally condemned in sin.
    But Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross put an end to that condemnation of the law. Now, by the faith He gives us through the Holy Spirit, who comes to us through the Word and the Sacraments, we are freed from the law of sin, washed clean once and for all. Our sins are forgotten, and our God remembers them no more. Because of this, we can now enter Heaven as heirs, adopted by our God for the sake of Jesus’ sacrifice.
DLH
I received my ashes yesterday………