Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Jonah 3:1-10 + Joel 2:12-19 + Matthew 6:16-21
We call today Ash Wednesday because ashes are an Old Testament sign of sorrow, and in the New Testament Church the practice arose of having those Christians who fell into grave public sin wear ashes on their heads during the Lenten season as a sign of their repentance—their sorrow over the sins they had committed—so that they could then be welcomed back into the Church after their time of public repentance was fulfilled. At some point, the practice was extended, not just to public sinners, but to any and all Christians. I can’t say that I find any usefulness in that in our time, nor did the Lutherans at the time of the Reformation.
Then there is the tradition of fasting during the Lenten season, and that may be somewhat more useful, if carried out in the right spirit and for the right reasons. Jesus spoke of the usefulness of that kind of fast in our Gospel this evening.
In any case, we learn from the Scriptures this evening about the great usefulness—or rather, our the urgent need—of repentance and sorrow over sin, but only when that sorrow over sin is followed by faith in God’s tender mercies for Christ’s sake. Because to be sorry or sorrowful over something you did wrong does no one any good if it isn’t combined with faith in God’s grace and mercy to blot out your transgressions.
We saw the king of Nineveh sitting in ashes and proclaiming a fast in his city after the prophet Jonah announced that the Lord was giving them forty days before He would destroy them for their violence and their unbelief. And the Lord saw that the ashes and the fasting were signs of genuine humility, indications of true repentance and sorrow over their wickedness, signs that they were determined to turn from their sins in the hope that God would relent. And He did relent; He didn’t destroy them, because He is gracious and merciful and does not desire the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn back from their sins and turn toward the merciful Lord God for forgiveness.
We heard the prophet Joel calling on the rebellious people of Israel to repent, to turn to the Lord with all their heart, “with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Unlike the heathen people of Nineveh, the Israelites had a covenant relationship with the true God and yet still had turned away from Him in their hearts, putting their trust in false gods, putting their trust in themselves, living in whatever sins they wanted, and figuring that God would let it go, that God would put up with it, because, after all, they were His people, His Church. Oh, no, says Joel. All have sinned, and a day of vengeance and punishment is coming on all who will not sorrow over their sins. Return to the Lord, not with outward gestures of repentance, but with hearts that are truly broken and contrite. Why? What’s the point? Because God is “gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.”
The people of Nineveh fasted in repentance. The people of Israel were called on to fast in repentance. Then there’s that other group of Jews, the Pharisees, who were famous for fasting. They fasted all the time, and made sure everyone knew it and could see it on their faces, so that they would be praised for their great “humility.” But their fasting wasn’t good enough. Their fasting wasn’t done in sorrow over sin, but as a sign of their pride in how “practically sinless” they were.
But they weren’t sinless. No one is sinless. In fact, the Scriptures lump all of our works together under sin. God says, repent of all of it. Sorrow over all of it. Not a single deed you’ve ever done is good enough to earn God’s favor. You can’t hold up a single work of yours to the light of God’s Law and say, “Now this was a perfect work, untainted by sin.”
What you can do, what you must do, is to sorrow over your utter sinfulness, and then immediately hold up to God the treasure that He Himself has given you, the treasure that is Christ Jesus. Here! Here is perfection! Here is a life of perfect righteousness and love and humility. Here, O Lord God! Judge me, not by anything I’ve done, but by the precious blood of Your dear Son. And there is where God’s mercy and forgiveness are always found. The blood of Christ is always precious enough to cover your sins. The merits of Christ are always good enough to earn God’s favor for you and for everyone who has ever lived on earth or who will ever live. To repent is to sorrow over your complete failure before God, and then at once to rejoice in faith in the complete success of Jesus, who earned God’s favor for you.
Christ is the treasure that matters, that lasts. And so, He says, don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Here, moth and rust destroy. Here, thieves break in and steal; stock markets crash; wars erupt and currency becomes worthless overnight. Here, the favor of your friends and even of your family is fickle, and with one mistake, on your part or theirs, you can lose it all. So why live for these things? Why order your life around getting more things and gaining more favor here on earth? It will all be gone, and probably sooner than you think. Worse still, you have sins that need dealing with, and there’s nothing here on earth that can do it.
Instead, by the Means of Grace you have been given access to heavenly things, heavenly benefits. Christ has shed His blood for your sins, and now, in Word and Sacrament, He gives you the heavenly benefits of forgiveness, life and salvation. Earthly wisdom fails and perishes. But the heavenly wisdom of God’s Holy Spirit never fails and never perishes. Works done to get ahead in this life will be forgotten. But the works done by believers in faith toward God and in love toward your neighbor will follow you into eternal life.
So I won’t put ashes on your forehead tonight, and I won’t tell you to fast in this Lenten season. And I don’t want to know about it, even if you do fast; let it be between you and God, and let it serve as a reminder that your soul needs the treasure of Christ even more than your body needs food. I will tell you over the next forty days to live in repentance—sorrow over sin and faith in Christ, and not to neglect the state of your soul. And I will tell you to be ardent in prayer and diligent in hearing the Word of God, in struggling against sin and the temptations that come both from the devil and from your own flesh, and in producing fruit worthy of repentance, improving your life, with the help and support of God’s Holy Spirit, so that you are more loving tomorrow than you were today, ever growing into the image of Christ. As we confess with Luther in the Smalcald Articles:
In Christians, this repentance continues until death. For through one’s entire life, repentance contends with the sin remaining in the flesh. Paul testifies that he wars with the law in his members (Romans 7:14–25) not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit that follows the forgiveness of sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins and works to make a person truly pure and holy.
Amen.
