1. Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
  2. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  3. Jesus stands before the disciples as the bridge between heaven and earth, and between Old Testament and New Testament.
  4. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  5. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  6. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  7. Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
  8. Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
  9. Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
  10. Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
  11. The usual acclamation when one becomes King is: “Long live the King!” But this King of kings, this son of David, has come to die.
  12. As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."