ASH WEDNESDAY IS THE VALENTINE'S DAY FOR GOD

Most everyone knows what Valentine's Day is all about:  Celebrating Love. 

The main commercial thrust defines this as a holiday celebration of romantic love, yet it can also mean celebrating the love within family bonds such as between father and daughter.  But with Valentine's Day falling on Ash Wednesday this week, this offers the unique opportunity for one to accentuate affection for the greatest love of all:  The Love of God.

Ash Wednesday represents the first day of Lent in the Western Church, occurring 46 days prior to Easter.  It is marked by services of penitence, during which the ashes of burned palms from the preceding year's Palm Sunday are blessed and used by the priest who traces a cross onto the forehead of each worshiper to signify a better appreciation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Each time the priest draws this, he recites, "Remember, man, that dust art thou, and unto dust thou shalt return".  (Genesis 3:19 KJV)  This commencement of the Lenten period of time leads

Priest traces cross onto parishioner's forehead

believers to devote themselves more fully to an increased self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial.

While this description of Ash Wednesday may sound more grim and painstaking than anything that resembles Valentine Day's pleasure of love, the whole idea is to demonstrate the beauty of the ultimate sacrificial love reserved solely for God Himself.  All of the above-named practices, themselves true expressions of love, are the combined preparations for not just any death but for a holy one in order to be eternally--and blissfully--joined together with God.

The origin of Ash Wednesday is not biblical, but actually came later in church history.  

The idea for it began with the formation of Lent itself,which was accepted into the beliefs of the Church at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.  The Council adopted the 40-day duration, beginning on the 4th Sunday of the year, for fasting which became known as Lent.  While repenting, fasting, and focusing on God are  important all year long, this period of time encouraged a more keen rededication of these practices which remains an annual opportunity to this day.

The exact origin of Ash Wednesday itself is unclear, but in 601 A.D. Pope St. Gregory I (the Great) moved the beginning of Lent on the calendar from the 4th Sunday of the year to the day that was to became Ash Wednesday; now 46 days before Easter, this change allowed for 40 days of fasting along with 6 Sundays counting as Feast Days.  This raised the total to  46 days for Lent.  It is believed that Pope Gregory, as found in the earliest existing copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, then went on to institute the "Day of Ashes" as the onset of Lent.  This later became the Catholic tradition of Ash Wednesday, the ritual of marking the forehead of each worshiper with ashes in the shape of the cross.

There are biblical roots for the actual practice of using dust or ashes to demonstrate regret for sin as found in Esther 4:1 with Mordecai, Job 42:6, Jonah 3:5-6 with the inhabitants of Nineveh, and in  Daniel 9:3-4.  In biblical times, this show of repentance was often followed by fasting.

Repenting (feeling remorse for disappointing God), Fasting (practicing self-denial to build the spiritual strength needed to overcome obstacles to a closer relationship with God), and a greater focus on God (expelling selfishness for the unrivaled exaltation of God), are all Christian acts that fittingly testify to the greatest love of all.  And these practices, as believers well know, carry far more value than the traditional Valentine's Day gifts of chocolates, bouquets, or even diamond jewelry. They are the actions that speak volumes in securing unification with the utmost of all loves.

AFTER MOST CELEBRATE "NEW CHRISTMAS", OTHERS AWAIT "OLD CHRISTMAS"

The Bible does not specifically
reveal the date of Jesus' birth

For Christians worldwide, a celebratory date does not always match the celebrated day.  This is why there is so much confusion with what has come to be known as the “New Christmas” as opposed to the “Old Christmas”.  

Not until the 4th century was
Christmas officially celebrated
on December 25th

The Bible does not specifically reveal the date or even time of year when Jesus Christ was born.  It wasn’t until the 4th century when Pope Julius I officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on December 25th.

There is debate as to why he chose that particular date.  Some believe it was because of the celebration of Annunciation,

Orthodox Icon of Annunciation

which is when the Angel Gabriel told Mary she was going to give birth to God’s son, which was on March 25th.  Factor in nine of months of pregnancy brings us to the date of December 25th.  Additionally and of special spiritual significance, some early Christians were of the understanding that March 25th was also the date when Jesus died.  This was a calculation based on the 14th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar. 

Others believe that Pope Julius I chose December 25th because pagans at that time were already holding midwinter festivals during this month, and since people were already accustomed to celebrating things at that time it was convenient to work in Christmas.   One such pagan festival was called the “Saturnalia”, it honored the Roman god Saturn and was held between December 17th and 23rd.  Another celebration was “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti”, this celebrated the birthday of the Roman sun god Mithra and was held on December 25th.  The Romans thought that on this date the Winter Solstice was occurring, which is the day that has the shortest time between sunrise and sunset, which bolstered their belief that with the days that followed becoming longer that this was proof that their sun god was unconquered.  In their religion of Mithraism, the holy day was Sunday which is the origin of our word for this day of the week.

Pagans already worshiped Winter Solstice on Dec. 25th,
the sun winning over winter darkness.
Christians saw Jesus as "light of the world",
and chose same date with their different
focus on "light".

For these pagans, the Winter Solstice was especially sacred because it meant winter was over and spring was coming; they worshiped the sun winning over the darkness of winter.  But for Christians, it has instead always been Jesus who represents the light of the world, so it made sense to match the theme but hold their own celebration of Jesus on this same date.  These early Christians even borrowed some of the customs of the pagan celebration, such as Holly, Mistletoe, and even singing Carols, and gave these Christian meanings.

The Julian calendar was used during this period.  But it was flawed, not correctly matching the solar elapse of time.  It wasn’t until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII established the “Gregorian Calendar”, which is what we use today, adjusting the now new date of December 25th and causing Christmas to come 10 days earlier than the December 25th date on the Julian calendar.  Many in the world were not happy with this adjustment at first.  Only gradually over the period of the next few centuries did this change become accepted and adopted by most of the world.  But there remained some who continued to refuse the Gregorian calendar, and they persisted in celebrating their December 25th date of Christmas on the Julian calendar which was a full 10 days behind the Gregorian calendar.  These different celebrations came to be known as the Gregorian’s “New Christmas” and the Julian’s “Old Christmas”.

Orthodox Icon of Epiphany

By the 19th century, due to its flawed measurement of time, the Julian Christmas ended up falling on January 6th which not only is the date for Epiphany (the celebration of Jesus’ baptism by St. John the Baptist), but it was also believed to be the same date when the Wise Men finally arrived in Bethlehem to worship the baby Jesus.  This duality lent itself to the Julian Calendar’s Christians to not only celebrate Epiphany but to do so in a way that mirrored their celebration of Christmas.  

As time went on, many of those who continued to follow the Julian calendar began to want a separate day from Epiphany to celebrate Jesus’ birth.  This caused most of them to adopt the Gregorian’s December 25th date for Christmas.

But, to this day, there remains many of the Orthodox and Coptic Churches that never accepted the Gregorian calendar.  Due to their continued Julian calendar reference, not only do these churches still celebrate the “Old Christmas” (which is December 25th on their Julian calendar compared to January 7th on the Gregorian), they also celebrate other Christian festivals, such as Pascha (Easter), on different dates than most of the Western Christians.

While Christmas dates may still vary for different Christians, nevertheless all believers everywhere equally pour out their own expression of devout and joyous worship to celebrate the day that their  Savior, Jesus Christ, came into the world as a newborn baby.