Ash Wednesday
Beloved. Today we begin the holy and penitential season of Lent. We begin our journey with our Lord and travel with Him in spirit to the place of His sufferings and agonies and finally stand at the foot of the cross with St. Mary and St. John and there see with His death our atonement and reconciliation to God. From there we await that glorious Easter announcement: He is risen!; that glorious announcement that Jesus did pay the price for our sins and we sinners are reconciled to God by the death of Jesus on the cross; that by His death Jesus conquered sin, death, devil and hell. Today we stand at the beginning of this Lenten journey, on this first day of Lent known as Ash Wednesday, a day in which Christians give an outward expression of their sorrow over their sins by receiving ashes on their forehead. And throughout Lent, many Christians adopt practices like fasting—going with food, or a certain type of food like meat—or like extra time in prayer and Scripture, and extra money given to the church and needy.
But as we heard our readings today perhaps you noticed what seems to be somewhat of a disconnect with Ash Wednesday and the practice of the ashes on the forehead. In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. So is it wrong to apply ashes to the forehead—after all, isn’t it just a “between me and God” sort of thing? Like all these sort of things, it goes to the heart to our motivation—why do we do it? Do we do it to look holy and to make ourselves stand out from the crowd so we are noticed—or even to fit in since others do it too? Then, of course it would be wrong and our Lord’s words would apply: the hypocrites…disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. But, no, rightly done in the proper spirit of faith and repentance the ashes are a wonderful confession of faith: I am a sinner and the wages of sin are death. Remember, after the fall into sin God told Adam [Gn 3.19]: dust you are and to dust you will return. That’s what we remind ourselves of as we see ourselves in the mirror with the ash on the forehead. That’s what we are preaching to our fellow Christians and they are preaching to us. It serves the Christian well as we are reminded of the seriousness of our sin and the necessity and beauty of Jesus’ work. As we eventually wash off the ashes, we are reminded of the cleansing and blessing of the waters of holy Baptism.
So what is Lent all about? What is Lent, then, calling us to do—or better put: what is the blessing the Lord gives us in the Lenten season? The OT prophet St. Joel, records the Lord’s words: Yet even now…return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. The call of Lent is to return to the Lord. Look at the word: return. Returning means that we have left; you cannot return to what you haven’t left. You can’t return home from a vacation if you never left home. The Lord here is very clear: return to Me. And that means what? The people of Joel’s day left the Lord; they departed from His will and His ways. But now in Lent we hear the same call from the Lord: return to Me. By our sins each of us has left the Lord, His will and His ways. We need Lent because we need to hear that call of the Lord to us in Lent: return to Me.
Here we see what sin does. Sin—each sin we commit—separates us from God; each sin brings us away from God. And as long as we are in the world, we will need to hear Lent’s call, not just in Lent but also each day—and often—return to Me. That’s what our lives of daily examination of heart and conscience are all about. We look at our heart and life in the mirror of God’s holy Law; we see how far we have left Him by our sin. Daily holding up our life and works to the mirror of God’s holy law to recognize and sorrow over our sins is something-- hearing and obeying Lent’s call every day, return to Me--this is something we need to do until we arrive safely home with our Lord in heaven.
Our Lord continues: return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Notice the examination of our conscience and life is not just some light superficial thing. And that’s what Lent drives home to us. We spend these 40 days of Lent in a particular and thorough examination. And this teaches us and drives home to us the seriousness and thoroughness that our examination of heart and life is to be. As we focus in more at the end of Lent on our Lord’s sufferings and death, there we see how serious our sins are and what they earn us/ what we deserve from God because of them. May we not let the season of Lent pass us by without a thorough examination of heart and life; and may that become for us the new “normal.” Yes, it will be painful to see/ recognize our sin. But let us not stop because of that. Instead, let the holy Law of God truly humble us so that we, recognizing and full of sorrow over our sin, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. This is a godly sorrow of which St. Paul says [2 Cor 7.10]: For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation...
That godly sorrow/ grief that leads to repentance is one of inner sincerity—we are truly from the heart crushed by the Law of God, crushed by our sin. It is not a sorrow that any hypocrite could fake—a person could fake the fasting, weeping and wailing—but as the Lord says in our text: and rend your hearts and not your garments. Rending/ tearing the clothes was an outward act to show great sorrow. So tearing/ rending the heart means expressing great sorrow, inward sorrow; being truly sorry from the heart. That’s that true inner sincerity, one that doesn’t “just go through the motions.”
May that be what Lent this year does for us: may it renew us in that honest and thorough examination of heart and life so that we recognize our sin and turn away from our sin and return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, in true inner sincerity; may we spiritually by our repentance over sin rend [our] hearts and not [our] garments.
As the Lord here says in our text: Yet even now…return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments, notice He mentions both things—the outward acts and the inner sincerity. The outward acts are the fasting, weeping, and mourning and the inner act is rending/ tearing not the garment but the heart. The simple fact is that while, yes, the outward acts can be faked and done by a hypocrite—like Jesus points out in the Gospel—when done with an honest and sincere heart they are outward signs of the heart’s true repentance. They outwardly show what is in the heart. It is good and right for a Christian to let his/her faith show in outward acts: return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Here the people of Joel’s day denied themselves with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning to confess to God their deep sorrow. In our day we do things like kneeling in confession and before the Lord in the sacrament, like praying and fasting, like making the sign of the cross, like getting a cross of ashes on our forehead. These too are outward acts that train us and assist us in our humility and repentance. They do outwardly what the heart does/ is inwardly. These outward acts are not in and of themselves repentance and faith but they give outward expression of that inner reality.
Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. So why can we repent? Why is there Lent? Why can the Lord say in our text: Return to the Lord, your God? Because why? –For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The call of Lent is not only return to the Lord but also that the Lord is gracious and merciful. Here is the motive for Lent/ the motive for sincere repentance: God’s grace and mercy toward us in Christ. Look at what the Lord says twice in our text: Return to Me and Return to the Lord, your God. Notice that little word: Return. That’s a glorious command of the Gospel. God wants us to go to Him in sorrow over our sin and faith. If God wanted simply to reject and damn us for our sin—what we rightly earn and deserve for them—would He give us the command: Return? Hardly! So no matter how great you feel your sin to be, the Lord still gives you that glorious command: Return to Me. Dear Christian, let nothing stand in our way. Let the devil not convince us of anything else. God loves us sinners; He wants us to Return to Him no matter how much or how horrible our sin.
Our reason to return to the Lord—daily and often in sorrow over sin and faith—is not only does He in great grace command it—as if that’s not enough but to all the motivate and induce us He tells us clearly in our text: For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster. Because He is gracious, He loves us even though we do not deserve it; because He is merciful, He is full of mercy for us sinners; because He is slow to anger, He may be provoked but He does not let His wrath flame up; because He is abounding in steadfast love, He is faithful in His promises to us; because He relents over disaster, He does not let stern justice rule but gladly turns aside judgment when He sees His holy word has had its effect. So what do we see here? Why can we in Lent and every day return to the Lord in repentance? Why does He Himself tell us/ command us to return to Him? –Because it is His very nature to forgive—it’s who He is! He forgives us not in a tit-for-tat/ in exchange for our repentance but because it’s God’s nature to forgive.
And that’s why the season of Lent is a time rich in blessing. Because as we ponder Jesus’ holy passion/ His suffering and death, we see that great love and mercy of God toward us sinners in full force. The thing is a holy and just God cannot let His holy Law stand unkept; He cannot leave sin unpunished. But God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and…relents over disaster came to this earth, became also true man, placed Himself under the Law of God to keep for us perfectly—and so the holy Law of God was kept perfectly, and then He took on Himself all of our sins, who Himself became sin, and with His suffering and death on the cross suffered the wrath of God over all our sins and so appeased the wrath of a holy and righteous God. And now in Jesus we sinners are reconciled to the holy God. Because of Jesus, the God-man, the holy God can and does forgive our sin; because of Jesus and His saving work God is calling to us this Lent and every day Return to Me. Because Jesus rose from the dead there is no doubt about it—we are forgiven our sins; and for all to see, God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. This is why we can boldly examine heart and life this Lent and repent of our sin. Whenever the evil wants to lead us into despair about the number of or the greatness of our sin, let us instead hear Lent’s call: Return to the Lord because He is gracious and merciful. Let us run to confession and hear those glorious words of absolution: I forgive you all your sin… Let us run to the altar and there receive in our mouths the very body cursed for sin and the very blood poured out for our forgiveness. There’s no doubt—God is gracious and rich in forgiveness! Return to Him. INJ Amen