Ashes Instead of a Mask

When ashes fall on the forehead, time seems to slow down — Ash Wednesday — a time when we pause and remember — who are we? Where are we going? What are we doing? Ash Wednesday is a time of preparation for Lent in the Western Church, and everyone who comes is anointed with ashes left over from Palm Sunday, ashes made from the branches laid at the Savior’s feet as He rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey.

There’s something primordial in this gesture of anointing with ashes, reminding us that we are not eternal. Ash Wednesday, or Aschermittwoch, as the Germans call it, is not simply a Catholic ritual that Lutherans supposedly rejected. This is profoundly misleading. Luther didn’t abolish ashes; he abolished magic. For him, the mark on his forehead wasn’t a protective amulet against sin, but a reminder that without daily repentance, life turns into a theater of the absurd.

In Germany, this day is especially poignant. Just yesterday, carnival was roaring, masked people were dancing on the streets of Cologne and Mainz, drinking champagne and losing themselves in the noisy crowd. And today, silence. Restaurants are closed, soft organ music plays, and the whole country seems to be taking a breath before the long marathon of Lent. The Lutheran tradition has preserved this pause, this opportunity to stop. And right now, when the information noise has reached its peak, we need this pause like air.

You open your news feed, and there’s another scandal. One moment, Epstein’s files pop up, where the names of people who swore by morality are juxtaposed with crimes against humanity. Then there are politicians who hold the Bible in their hands on Sundays, but on weekdays make decisions that ruin the lives of thousands. We see this and feel a familiar mixture of anger and disappointment. How dare they call themselves Christians? How can faith be a cover for so many dark deeds?

But Ash Wednesday poses an uncomfortable question: where are we at this moment? It’s easy to point a finger at a smartphone screen, condemning yet another hypocrite. It’s much harder to look in the mirror. The essence of repentance, as Luther wrote in his 95 Theses, begins not with rebuking others, but with radical self-honesty. The first theses reads: “When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” This is not a one-time action before Easter. It is a constant work of the soul.

The problem with modern Christianity, especially in the public sphere, is that faith has become a brand. Being a Christian means belonging to a certain group, voting a certain way, demonstrating the right values. But this is an outer shell. Ashes symbolize dust. Dust. What we become when all our masks, statuses, and regalia are torn away. The Epstein files are terrifying not only in themselves, but also because they show that behind the façade of respectability can lurk complete spiritual emptiness. When a person forgets that they are “dust,” they begin to consider themselves gods. And where a person becomes their own god, crimes begin.

In the German Lutheran tradition, there is the concept of “Anfechtung”—a spiritual trial, a dark night of the soul. Luther himself experienced this. He understood that piety does not protect against falls. On the contrary, the higher you consider yourself, the more painful the fall. Therefore, ashes on the forehead are not a sign of holiness. This is a sign of humility. It’s an admission: “I can be wrong. I can be a hypocrite. I need forgiveness more than I need the right to judge.”

Today, as we see the reputations of people who called themselves pillars of morality crumble, the temptation is to say, “I’m not like that.” But Christian ethics whispers something else: “And you are the same if you forget your nature.” Scandals involving politicians and millionaires are not a reason for gloating. They are a warning. They are a reminder that power, money, and religious rhetoric without an inner core become instruments of violence.

Repentance is not self-flagellation. You don’t need to search for sins in yourself where they don’t exist to feel worthy of the church. It is a change of mind. Metanoia. A U-turn. When you see injustice in the news, the question is not how to condemn the guilty more loudly. The question is: where in your life are there compromises with your conscience? Where do you exploit people? Where do you put on a mask to appear better than you are?

In the silence of Ash Wednesday, when the carnival trumpets fall silent and the news reports fade, only you and that black mark on your skin remain. It fades within a few hours. But the feeling must remain. We live in an era when truth has become a bargaining chip. Facts are manipulated, images are created by PR managers, faith is used as a political tool. In this chaos, the only thing that remains authentic is the ability to admit one’s weakness. But also the ability to