Friends,

Happy Holy Ash Wednesday to you all!

Before I get much further, a quick note for my Dallas area readers: I am leading a free Lenten Silent Retreat at Church of the Incarnation this Saturday from 9am-2pm if you are interested in kicking off Lent with some guided reflection time. No registration required; more information here: https://incarnation.org/event/24267733-2026-02-21-lenten-silent-retreat-w-fr-jon-jordan/

In February of 1943 (83 years ago this week), C.S. Lewis delivered a series of lectures at the University of Durham.

He was invited to speak on the intersection of Religion and intellectual thought, but Lewis had a more pressing concern on his mind.

Lewis used these three lectures to raise a warning flag.

As a University professor and as an Anglican Christian Lewis had noticed a severe shift in the cultural, religious, and educational landscape throughout Europe over the previous generation.

Lewis was so deeply concerned about this shift that he used this lecture series to address his fellow professors, and more than a few clergy, alerting them to this problem.

So what was his concern? What was the great warning flag Lewis was attempting to raise?

He was concerned that the old way of thinking about what made a human human had been thrown away by a modern society that sought to redefine what it means to be human.

If you are unalarmed and underwhelmed at this point, you are not alone.

Is this really such a big deal?

Why does it matter that the Ancient and Medieval world had one understanding of what makes us human, and that we today have a different one? Why was this such a concern for Lewis? What did he see as the devastating consequences of this shift?

According to the ancient world—the Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, and even much of the Eastern world agreed on this—you and I are comprised of three parts. These three parts, taken together, make us human.

We are a head, a heart, and a stomach.

The head houses our intellect, our mind, and our will.

The heart is our moral muscle: it allows us to say “yes” and “no” when we need to.

Our stomach is where our passions live. Our desires. Our likes and dislikes. Our tastes.

For the Ancient world, and for Lewis, this structure mattered a great deal. In the ideal human, our thoughts are filtered through our heart—our moral muscle—in order to shape our desires and rule over our passions. All three of these—our head, our heart, and our stomach—must be trained as we grow up. Or so the wisdom of the ancients claimed.

So what had changed?

The modern world, according to Lewis, had quite literally cut out the middle man in this picture: in the world of the early 20th century, the role of the heart as our moral muscle had been diminished. The modern human is just Head and Stomach. We are a mind, and a collection of uncontrollable sentiments, impulses, and emotions.

The cultural, educational, and philosophical revolutions of the previous centuries had produced a generation of humans whose hearts, whose moral muscles, had atrophied.

Lewis argued that by 1943, Europe had produced a generation of men without chests.Their minds were well-trained, but their hearts were not. And without the heart acting as a moral muscle, the mind would be powerless against the passions.

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The epistle of St. James reminds us today that this problem was not unique to 20th century Europe.

In the first century, among the growing sect that would soon be called Christianity, this problem existed, too.

What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war with your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. You covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war.

According to St. James, our passions, our impulses are at war with our bodies. And at times, we lack the strength to control those impulses.

We lack heart. We have weak moral muscles.

So what is at stake here? Why does ignoring the heart and making it weak matter?

Why were St. James in the first century and Lewis in the 20th both so concerned about all of this?

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Don’t forget when Lewis delivered these lectures.

In February of 1943 Lewis raises this warning flag.

Less than 18 months later, at the end of World War II, Soviet troops marching across occupied Poland would discover a camp called Auschwitz.

The world reacted in horror when news spread about what happened in those camps. Camps designed and operated by some of history’s most highly educated minds. But minds that lacked the moral muscles needed to control the passions. Camps designed and operated by men without chests.

What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war with your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. You covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war.

Lewis knew that a generation of highly trained minds with severely weakened hearts would lead to devastation beyond belief.

And he was right.

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The danger of using World War II as an illustration is that it leaves room for us to sit back and think about how others have fallen short. How others have failed.

But today is Ash Wednesday.

And make no mistake: Ash Wednesday is not about someone else.

Ash Wednesday is about you.

Your passions at war with your members. The wake of destruction your choices leave behind. The harm that your weak moral muscles cause yourself, and those you love.

Ash Wednesday is a wake-up call.

It is the news from the doctor that all is not well. That our engrained habits have led to pain and death, not life and health.

We have neglected our hearts. Our moral muscles have atrophied.

Something needs to change, and it needs to change soon.

So what is the prescription? What is our path forward?

Draw near to God.

Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts.

Mourn. Weep. Humble yourself before the Lord.

Lent is the prescription.

And today is Day One of our treatment plan.

Lent is our path towards wholeness, healing, and holiness.

We strengthen our moral “no” muscle by fasting, learning to say “no” when the stakes are low, so that we can say “no” when it matters most.

We also strengthen our moral “yes” muscle by studying the Scriptures. By learning what to say “yes” to, and when.

We fast, we read the Scriptures, and we pray.

And slowly, over the course of this Lenten season, our weakened hearts grow stronger. Our moral muscle is strengthened. Through God’s grace we gain the ability to control our passions. To see the beginnings of what life and health can look like in our homes, in our businesses, and in our relationships.

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This long, slow path towards healing ends with Holy Week, where the true wholeness, healing, and holiness can be found.

This Journey ends with the Cross. And with the healing power of the Resurrection.

Today we mark our foreheads with ashes.

We join thousands of years of God’s people who marked their heads with ashes to signify sadness and sorrow for their own sin, and for the sins of others. We join with Mordecai, Daniel, Job, and countless others throughout the Scriptures who wore ashes as a reminder that something has gone terribly wrong in the world, and in their own hearts.

But … we wear those ashes in the shape of a cross.

So Remember: dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.

But also remember the shape of that dust.

The journey towards healing must begin with a recognition of our own sin.

And if it is to be true healing, it must end with an embrace of the cross.