WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2024 | LENT - ASH WEDNESDAY
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Revised Common Lectionary (2-14-2024: Ash Wednesday)
Old Testament Joel 2:1–2, 12–17
Psalm Psalm 51:1–17
New Testament 2 Corinthians 5:20b–6:10
Gospel Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
Good evening,
What a Valentine’s Day, hm? Well, if you are anything like me, it is likely you might just postpone it a little as I still cannot make it fit. Sure, there is no greater love than that of God and what Jesus underwent for us was also motivated by love, but… Ash Wednesday is more of a solemn day, I think.
We are called to humility, contemplation, and repentance. Typically not the mood we are going for on Valentine’s. We are reminded that we cannot be all happy go lucky and smiling all the time, there is also time to mourn and be solemn as our existence is as complex as that. There are happy moments and then they are sad moments, highs and lows, things we are proud of and things we are not proud of in the least.
We are human, imperfect....and yet we are God’s beloveds. We are dust and to dust we shall return and yet this dust is very precious to God, wanting to protect it and all. If we were just smearing crosses on our foreheads without the hope we have in God, it would make for a very dark service. That is how Job must have initially felt - he believed in God, but at the time, the belief in any kind of after life wasn’t really much of a thing. Blessings would come in the life time and if they didn’t…well, it wasn’t good!
We do not need to be that way, but still…it is good to stop and reflect from time to time. Our time on earth is limited and evaluating how it is going so far is healthy.
The tradition of Ash Wednesday continues, because, well…it continues to be important. Ash Wednesday is one of those things we “carried on” from our Jewish cousins in a way - in the Old Testament, the act of wearing sackcloth and ashes was a symbol of sorrow and repentance for sins. Early Christians, many Jewish themselves, recognized the need of this tradition. Many early church fathers recognized the importance of ashes as a visible sign of repentance and a reminder of human mortality - Tertullian, Pope Gregory the Great, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine and so on.
We as Lutherans retained it, even though we stress that imposing ashes itself doesn’t confer some pardon and we question if imposing ashes isn’t in contradiction to our today’s gospel reading about displaying piety publically. It is acceptable as long as it points back to God - we shall repent and turn back towards God and we are mortal and salvation comes through Christ’s death and resurrection, not by some symbolic acts of contrition. Again, we try to hold it in balance.
The cross on our foreheads is merely a symbol of something deeper, intrinsically connected to our lived reality - once more we are reminded that God KNOWS what it is to be human, to suffer, to feel pain, and to die. God experienced it in Jesus and his crucifixion and then transcended it and opened a gate through it for us. The scandal of God hanging on the cursed wood, the cross, becoming unholy, so that we may become holy. Dying, so that we may live. That and so much more is contained within this cross made of ashes. Let us journey on through Lent towards Easter - our time in the desert begins, but we are not alone, for God guides us day and night. Amen.