Sharon Delgado

Lenten Series: #1 A Spiritual Foundation for Resistance to Empire

Ash Wednesday 2026: Ashes and Apocalypse

Today I welcome this first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, with its dual focus on repentance and mortality, symbolized by the imposition of ashes.  The suggested church readings for Ash Wednesday are varied, but the words from Joel 2 are apocalyptic: 

“Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near–a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” Joel calls the community together for a fast of repentance, in light of the disaster that is coming upon them.  “Yet even now, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning,” says God. He says their only hope is repentance, which involves a change of mind, heart, and direction—a spiritual U-turn toward God.

These are apocalyptic times. I recently came across an article by Tom Engelhardt called “Trump is an Apocalypse.” The subtitle is “A literal Mad Hatter is in charge of the most powerful nation on Earth.” This certainly seems to be true.

The word “apocalypse” means “revelation” or “unveiling.” This is happening now. While Donald Trump may be the face of what has been called today’s polycrisis, the disastrous patterns coming to fruition now have been decades if not centuries in the making. The solution is not returning to what theologian Dominique Crossan calls “The Normalcy of Civilization,” that is, a way of life that may feel normal or even good to us but that is supported by social sin and institutional evil.

For many of us whose lives are stable and relatively comfortable, we might not recognize the evil (yes, evil) baked into the global system of unrestrained (“vulture” or “predatory”) free market capitalism backed by political, economic, police, and military power. Some of its worst impacts have been hidden from the view of many of us, but they are being revealed today by the spectacle of the Trump presidency:  corporate domination of social systems and governments, growing inequity and people left behind, racial and gender discrimination, media (including social media) dominated by the  Broligarchy, deadly technologies (such as AI) advancing without accountability, the detention and deportation machine, the state of permanent war, commodification and destruction of the gifts of the earth that supports us, rapidly advancing catastrophic climate change, and Christian Nationalism which justifies it all.

These interrelated symptoms of an idolatrous and unjust system are not new. The difference is that now it is fully apparent to all, to those who support the current administration and those who do not. The “unveiling” is happening in plain sight for all to see.

In this context of this apocalypse, on this Ash Wednesday, I take to heart the two primary themes:

1. Repentance. Joel and the other Hebrew prophets called people to repent from idolatry and injustice, not just as individuals but as a society, especially their leaders. All of us in some way participate and/or are victims of the institutions and systems in which we live. My prayers of repentance include prayers for transformation of the institutions and systems in which we live and for all of us who are enmeshed in them.
2. Mortality. I’m old enough now to die of natural causes, and I have had a wonderful life.  When I think about my mortality, I think about what I will leave behind that might help those who come after to cope with what is coming. Whatever I come up with always falls short because the future looks so hard.  My hope is to at least impart some of the divine love at the heart of the universe that I have received and that has given me strength.

Ashes seem appropriate to me. The Season of Lent is a journey through death to resurrection.  It’s a time to go deeper: to accompany Jesus in solidarity and witness as he resists the temptation to cultural accommodation, builds an inclusive “Beloved Community,” persists through conflict with the Powers, practices nonviolent resistance to injustice, and faces his death at the hands of Empire. It’s a time to see how our lives intersect with his, to come to terms with who we are and how we are to live, to recognize and experience the presence of God through it all, and to be ready for the surprises that resurrection brings in its many forms. For there is still a power at work in creation, including in us, that brings light out of darkness and life out of death. 

This is post #1 of Sharon’s 2026 Lenten Blog Post Series: A Spiritual Foundation for Resistance to Empire. See the other posts in the series here.

For another take on Ash Wednesday, see my post called “Frog Chorus on Ash Wednesday.” My husband Guari and I continue to read and find meaning in T.S. Eliot’s poem, Ash Wednesday, every year, as we have for decades.   

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