Putting Lent in Its Proper Place: A Homily for Ash Wednesday

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 Putting Lent in Its Proper Place.

A Homily for Ash Wednesday

February 18, 2026

By Kelly Liebengood



Lent is dangerous if we do not put it in its proper place! If we do not engage this season within its larger context, we run the risk of either agitating our propensity toward self-absorption and/or self-loathing; or even worse, developing a confidence that we have achieved God’s favor through performance. So, putting Lent in its proper context is critical if we are going to benefit from it. That is to say, if we are going to be healed, if we are going to mature, if we are going to be more conformed to Jesus and what he wants for us during this season, we will need to grow into what Jesus knows about us; we will need to embrace what is most true about us.


And what does Jesus know about us? What is it that is most true about us? That before we are anything else, we are first loved. Before we are sinners; before we totally depraved; before we were in need of forgiveness and redemption, we were already loved by God. Whether it is Genesis 1 that reminds us that we are God’s ultimate delight—“very good;” or John 17 that reveals to us that the whole reason that there is something rather than nothing is because God wants us to enjoy his life of love; or Revelation 21 that characterizes the longed-for day when God will finally dwell with his people as an adorned bride finally uniting with the groom,  Scripture and the witness of the Spirit (Romans 5:5) affirm that we exist from the overflowing life of the triune God of love and for sharing in this life of love. We have been made to be caught up in the Father’s love of the Son, and the Son’s delight in the Father’s love (John 17:24-26). And we have been invited into the Spirit’s work of conforming us to the Son’s love of the Father. We have, in a sense, been invited to a dance party, where we don’t know the moves, but if we follow the lead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we will find that we fit right in. 


So, this is the Why? of Lent, the ground on which Lent—and any other season—stands. And if we pay attention, the logic of the Christian calendar reminds us of this. 


Advent, for example, is the announcement that our rebellion and rejection of God’s love will not be the last word—because nothing will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:31-39). Instead, in the face of what seemed like insurmountable obstacles, the Father sent the Son to repair, to heal—to liberate us from death, corruption, and sin—so that the love with which the Father loves the Son might be in us (John 17:26).  


Christmas is that time in which we savor that this announcement, God overcoming of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, has been fulfilled. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come…no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.”


In Epiphany, we focus on the light of the life and witness of Jesus—his pattern of life and the words He has given us. The first Sunday of Epiphany we reflect on the baptism of Jesus, where, perhaps counterintuitively, we learn not only what is true of Jesus but also what is most true about us! There, we learn that Jesus is the Beloved in whom the Father takes great delight (e.g., Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11; Eph 1:6; 2 Pet 1:17). And as we pay attention to the words that the Beloved has come to give us, words of light and life, especially in the Gospel of John, we learn that that everything that Jesus gives to us and everything that Jesus wants for us, he first receives from the Father (e.g., John 5:17, 26, 30; 6:38; 14:10). And because the Spirit has been sent “so that we might understand the things freely given us by God (1 Cor 2:12),” we come to know what is most true about ourselves, something that Jesus knows about us before we do—that we too are the beloved in whom the Father delights (e.g., 1 John 3:2; 4:7, 11; Eph 4:32-5:1; 1 Pet 2:11; 4:12)! 


That being the case, Jesus comes to teach us, giving us words and wisdom—and a pattern of life to follow—so that we can share in His belovedness and in so doing escape the corruption that is in this world because of sinful desire (2 Pet 1:3-4). This is why we focus on the teachings of Jesus during Epiphany—so that we can grow into who we truly are. 


When we put Lent in its proper place, with all this in mind, it reorients why we concern ourselves with such questions as,  Am paying attention to and following the words and ways of Jesus? Am I faithful to what Jesus has said? Do I trust in his wisdom and promises? What do I need to repent from? What do I need to resist? What am I distracted by? What sins are weighing me down? What do I need to embrace? Who do I need to serve? What do I need to see more clearly? 

And it clarifies why we offer this courageous Lenten prayer each Sunday during the season: 


Search me, O God, and know my heart! 

Try me and know my thoughts! 

See if there is any idolatrous way in me, 

and lead me in the way everlasting. 


(Psa 139:23-24)


For growth begins not so much by doing all the imperatives of Jesus (as necessary as that is!), but rather by paying more careful attention to God’s knowing of us. Said in another way, we become more Christlike, that is we become more conformed to Jesus when we pay attention to God’s looking at us. The apostle Peter says it like this: “Beloved,…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus (2 Pet 3:18). What he means in this instance is not that we should acquire more knowledge about Jesus (as commendable as that is). Instead, he urges us to grow in knowing what Jesus knows about out us; to grow in the grace, the favor, the belovedness that Jesus shares with us. In other words, Jesus is the one doing the gracing and knowing (a subjective genitive for you Greek nerds!). And we grow in as much as we receive what he knows about us and gives to us. 


So, what gives us the courage to do this—to open up our lives before God and to say, Is there anything in me that is misaligned or out of order? It is knowing, believing, and embracing that before you are anything else, you are first loved. Your belovedness is not an accomplishment, something that you achieve. It is a gift; you are invited to participate in the realest reality of all—God’s life of love! To live out any other identity is to live an allusion, it is to participate in the deception and corruption of our age—to live against the grain of what is most real: and it will fail! But love never fails. 


This Lent, take courage; pay attention to God’s knowing of you; join the dance party! And follow the ways and words of the One who has come to enable us share in God’s life of love. 


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