Ash
Wednesday – Feb 18, 2015
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17;
Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
The
Rev. Maurice Frontz, STS
Brothers
and sisters in Christ,
Today
we begin our forty-day journey
toward
the cross and resurrection of our Lord.
Today
we hear once again the call of Joel:
‘Return
to the Lord your God.’
Today
we hear the plea of St Paul:
‘We
entreat you on behalf of Christ,
be
reconciled to God.’
We
read in the Old Testament
in
books like Joel and Jonah
how
those convicted of their sin
sat
in sackcloth and ashes
as
a sign of sorrow for their sin
and
plea for forgiveness.
And
so we, like them,
receive
ashes on our foreheads,
that
we might acknowledge
before
God and ourselves
the
gravity of our situation,
that
we might physically enact
the
desire of our hearts and minds
to
return to the Lord our God.
But
perhaps we who are here do not think
that
we need much repentance,
certainly
not a change of mind and heart.
We
may think of all those in the world
who
we think need repentance;
the
murderers, the violent and the abusive,
the
sexually immoral, the greedy,
those
who tell lies, those who covet what belongs to others.
But
today is not a day for judging others.
Today
is a day to come face-to-face
with
our own participation in the human rebellion against God.
Even
if we have lived lives which are relatively good
none
of us can claim to have lived according to the great commandment,
upon
which hang the Law and the Prophets:
‘Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind,
and
love your neighbor as yourself.’
We
come face-to-face with the failures and brokenness in our own lives.
which
give concrete evidence of our rebellion.
We
recognize in ourselves those
who
have not feared, loved, and trusted God above all things.
We
recognize in ourselves those
who
have misused the name of the Lord;
We
recognize in ourselves those
who
have not remembered the Sabbath Day;
who
have pursued our own interests,
failing
to keep God’s Word holy and gladly hear and learn it.
And
so we accept the ashes as those
who
have committed sin before God,
and
we acknowledge our community with all sinners,
even
those whom we believe are the worst sinners before God.
To
stand praying as if we were holier-than-thou
would
be the worst offense on this Ash Wednesday.
Indeed,
perhaps those of us who are baptized into the name of Christ
are
more guilty than the rest,
for
we have been given the Word of God
and
the promise of Christ,
but
like the ancient people of Israel,
we
have forgotten the promise and neglected the Word.
But
when we accept the ashes,
we
do so in hope.
We
do so in sure and certain hope that as the prophet Joel says,
‘the
LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and
abounding in steadfast love,
and
relents from punishing.’
Without
this good news,
we
would never celebrate Ash Wednesday.
Instead
we would deny our sins,
or
we would blame God for them.
Trusting
in God’s promise,
we
can come face-to-face with who we are,
because
of who God is.
The
ashes are traced on our forehead
in
the shape of the holy Cross.
St
Paul writes,
‘For
our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’
In
our Lord Jesus, God himself came among human beings
as
a human being.
Not
only did he take up our flesh,
he
also took on our sins.
Indeed,
Martin Luther, who died four hundred sixty-nine years ago today,
could
call Jesus magna peccatrix, the
greatest sinner;
not
that Jesus was a sinner himself
but
because he really took on all the sins of the world
and
bore them all in his body.
Think
of it.
The
sins of the murderers, the terrorists,
the
rapists, the abusers, the thieves great and small,
the
liars, the coveters;
all
of them carried by Jesus the innocent one.
As
a sinner for us,
Jesus
too sat in the ashes of repentance.
The
way of the cross, the way of suffering,
was
the repentance he made for us.
His
suffering was a patient waiting for his Father to have mercy upon him
and
upon all the people with whom he shares everything.
In
accepting the ashes on our foreheads,
and
accepting them in the shape of a cross,
we
not only confess that we are sinners,
but
that it is Christ who bears our sins himself
and
for them walked the way of the cross.
We
do so not in despair,
but
in sure and certain hope,
because
the one whose sign is the cross
dies
for us and is raised for us.
In
the sign of the cross,
we
are given the Gospel;
the
Lord who made himself known in Christ
is
indeed a merciful and gracious God,
slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
In
this faith and trust,
we
may come face-to-face with ourselves
and
with the God who saves us.
