What is now known as Ash Wednesday and Lent was based on the 325 A.D. Catholic Church Dictum of the First Council of Nicaea as “… a time of preparation of candidates for baptism and a time of penance for grievous sinners who were excluded from receiving Holy Communion and were preparing for their restoration. As a sign of their penitence, they wore sackcloth and were sprinkled with ashes.” Which had nothing whatsoever to do with Easter or Spring.
In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory I (Saint Gregory the Great; the “founder” of the medieval papacy) hijacked the Dictum of the First Council of Nicaea and repurposed it as Lent, which was further religiously-codified by Pope Urban II in 1091.
The word Lent comes from the German word “Lenz” meaning “Long”, and in Old-English it was “Lencten”, meaning “Spring Season”.
Pope Gregory’s ritual-observance of Ash Wednesday occurs exactly 46 days before Easter Sunday (6-1/2 weeks), which is the ‘kick-off’ for his 40-days of Lent (which does not include Sundays in the count).
Lent is stated by Christians as “a 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; a time of preparation for Easter and a time to remember the events leading up to Jesus’ Death.”
People love the spiritual mysticism of rites and rituals. Because the greater majority of people only know what their religion tells them about God and Scripture, they inanely practice these meaningless rituals.
In the original ceremony (325 A.D.), the ashes were strewn on the top of the head. But because the women had to cover their head, they introduced the smearing of ashes on the forehead. Today, the predominant method of this religious ritual is smudging the forehead with a sign of the cross.
Today, there are several ‘variations’ as to the practices, methods, and elements of the ritual … not only between the religions, but also by location; each city, region, and country seem to have their own variation.
Then there is Lent. The 40-days of self-sacrifice, self-abasement. contrition, penance, prayer, fasting, and whatever else the various religions and regions choose to include, or exclude.
They base this ritual primarily on one of two teachings: It is either because Jesus fasted in the desert for 40-days, or because Moses was on the mountain for 40-days … again, the teaching varies between religious factions and regions.
Ash Wednesday and Lent have nothing at all to do with God or Scripture … they are simply the ritualistic practices invented by religion. The people ignorantly follow these rituals as a means of “fire insurance” … hoping to avoid the wrath and judgement of God.
If these people actually loved God, as they claim, they would study Scripture and acquire some Basic Bible Knowledge: They would actually know The Truth According to Scripture.
So, what are the facts?
The word “ashes” occurs 43 times in Scripture.
The teaching of the ‘Church’ about the ‘ashes’ is drawn primarily from 3 passages; Esther 4:3, Matthew 11:21, and Luke 10:13 … but they ignore Isaiah 58:1-7 wherein Israel is chastised by God for doing a very similar ritual, which Christianity refers to as “Ash Wednesday and Lent”. In none of these instances were any ashes placed or smeared on anyone’s head.
There are 47 occurrences in Israel’s Masoretic Text Old Testament concerning acts of mourning and contrition, but the practice is universal; to ‘tear your clothes off and gird your loins with sackcloth’ … but no ‘ashes’.
As for the “ashes”, the common practice of Repentance in Israel’s Masoretic Text Old Testament was to “rend their clothes and gird their loins with sackcloth” and to either sit, lay, or wallow in the ashes … never to put the ashes on their head.
The only occurrence recorded in Scripture of anyone putting ashes on their head is found in II Samuel 13:19, concerning Tamar, after she was raped by her brother Amnon, “And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying.”
In extreme circumstances Israel was instructed by God to ‘lament and howl, weep, mourn, shave their head (men must also shave their beards), and gird themselves with sackcloth’ (all at the same time) … but there is no mention of ‘ashes’ in any of those instances.
In Scripture, there is absolutely NO instruction for the observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent. Ash Wednesday and Lent are simply the inventions of the “Church” for control and manipulation of their followers. It has nothing at all to do with God or Scripture.