This coming Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is the six-week season that leads up to Easter. While Advent is a season of hope, Lent is commonly regarded as a period of sober observance. Ash Wednesday starts Lent by remembering our mortality. The words in Genesis 3:19 continue to ring true: “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Therefore, in many churches’ traditions, believers will put ashes on their forehead, often in the shape of a cross. It symbolizes our humanity and limitations as we all must face death one day.

We are all familiar with the fact that the Chinese will go to great lengths to avoid mentioning death, directly or indirectly. Hence in China, many buildings will not have the 4th or 14th floor (sounds like the word “death” in Chinese). We fear the unknown that lies beyond the land of the living and seek every opportunity to avoid the inconvenient truth. However, death is a destination that we never move further away from, only closer towards. As the American poet Carl Sandburg said, “The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time”.

The 5th century monk, Saint Benedict of Nursia, admonished his monks to “keep death before one’s eyes daily”. The point of remembering death daily is not a morbid obsession nor to have a depressing outlook in life. When we learn to accept our mortality and not deny it, sentimentalize it, or run from it, we keep our eyes oriented to the One who is eternal. In my days of youth, the contemplation of death is what drove me to ask the existential question: who am I and why am I here? Recognizing the inevitability of death can remind us that the day to seek God, the day to reconcile broken relationships, the day to minister to others is today.

Nevertheless, when we remember our mortality during Ash Wednesday, we do not welcome it as a friend. Theologian Tim Perry writes, “A Christian understanding of death ... presents death as the great severer of all loving relationships, as the punishment for sin, and as the final enemy”. When our loved ones die, let us not minimize the pain and lost. Instead, let us grieve in sorrow and agonize over the pain. At the same time, we must hold fast to the truth that death does not have the final word. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and in His kingdom to come, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).