Ash Wednesday (Year ABC) RCL, 2023

Ash Wednesday (Year ABC) RCL, 2023

St. Matthew’s Lutheran, Cornwall

Psalm 51

A Clean and Baptized Heart

From dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Such is death. Such is the fate of those who sin. That’s the law.

But where is the gospel here? What is the GOOD NEWSof that message? What is the Gospel of our impending death? Why, as one of our fellow St. Matthew’s brethren asked me a couple months ago, do we still need to die, if Christ died in our place? A good question, no?

Well, let’s think about it this way; have you ever... and perhaps this is too personal, but have you ever done something that was so evil, so sinful, so obviously wrong that you felt it at your very core? I don’t mean the little sins that we shrug off (though those are no less damnable). But I think you know (some of you at least,) what I mean. Whatever sin it is, there may have been something in your life, which, at some point in your life, made you feel irreversibly dirty. Perhaps it still haunts you. Perhaps no amount of good works, no amount of cleaning, no amount of abstaining from that action or thought or deed or whatever it was has made you FEEL any less dirty. Perhaps what you’ve done has created a ghost of your own sinfulness and uncleanness that haunts you now continually, and forever, and for-always. Perhaps no matter how many church services you attend, how many promises of God’s forgiveness you hear, no amount of sacraments you’ve receive have made you FEEL, any cleaner.

I have hoodies like this. White hoodies with mustard stains. You can wash ‘em, you can bleach ‘em, doesn’t matter. Still stained with yellow mustard.

The Psalmist today is one who understands this mustard stained hoodie, deeply. The psalmist is one who today feels like his soul is that hoodie. That even though he may change his ways, strain himself to think differently, and strive to be better – even if he succeeds, he doesn’t FEEL any better.

And what is that? Really? What puts that feeling in us? It’s our conscience. It’s the law in our hearts that KNOWS that the wages of sin, are not found in reparations or restoration or self-betterment or feeling sorry. The wages of sin are that we return to the dust from which we were made. The wages of sin – is death. And our consciences know it, our hearts know it, our souls know it.

And so, perhaps we have HEARD the Word of unconditional forgiveness in Christ. Perhaps we have received that promise of the blood of Christ, given in His Words and in His sacraments. Perhaps we have believed those promises – but still we FEEL “dirty.” Perhaps... we says, sure, God forgave my sin. But I still FEEL my sin. I still FEEL the dirtiness, the guilt, and the shame of that sin.

Is that not the cry of the Psalmist David today?

Certainly, he asks for God’s mercy, and we all do this. But the mercy he asks for is not one that merely overlooks the sin in him, but that blots it out, that washes it, and that annihilates it for good. Not to MERELY transform him from being a sinner into a saint (although he pleads for this too – a clean heart, and all that), but no, David pleads for God to show him mercy by BLOTTING OUT his sin, his shame, his iniquity and his guilt. He asks for God to actually remove it, to do away with it, to delete it, annihilate it, and to destroy it. That his sin might be no more, not just so that he can say he isn’t a sinner anymore, but so that it wont hurt him anymore. So that it wont affect him anymore. That he might actually be clean. Not only in name, or in word, but in actuality, - and in objective reality. David wants to be clean.

And i think there’s something crucial for the western church to get here that maybe we aren’t so good at getting. Something about the gospel, what it is, and what it does. You see, in the west, for so long – we have spoken of sin – and goodness, and even the gospel, by way of obedience, and righteousness, penalty, punishment, pardon,payment, substition, and reward. But very little of that is how sin, or goodnesswork in our lives at the level of felt experience. Nobody FEELS obedient. Nobody FEELS like rewards are on their way. Nobody FEELS penalized. And yet the gospel, constantly seeks to work as a salve to our souls by way of felt experience. To comfort the brokenhearted, toproclaim good news to the poor, to bring light to those who sit in darkness, to destroy sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and CLEAN-NESS to the dirty. Do you see? The gospel undoes what is broken and wrong in our reality. It doesn’t merely excuse it, or ignore it, or forget it. It doesn’t merely deal in detached legal conceptions, but the Gospel, reaches at our very hearts, to put right what is broken within us in our deepest depths. The gospel seeks to actually effect our lived and felt reality, if not here, then in eternity as a future hope.

What am I saying here? Let me simplify it for you. The gospel actually does something. It isn’t simply God telling you that He’s made a decision about you or has come through with a legal decree about you. But it’s His action in actually doing something, to recreate, to restore, and to renew that which was broken and wrong. And we see this in our text today, don’t we? There is blotting out, but there is also cleaning, there is creating, there is renewing and there is restoring. That is Gods’ Work in the Gospel. And that work takes place, exactly where it sounds like it takes place. In Baptism. Where does He WASH you clean of your sin? Where does it sound like that might happen? Well, in baptism of course!Where the old man – that is you, by the way. Is put down into the water, and drowned, and dies there with all sins, all brokenness, and all mustard stains, and it no longer exists. That is how your transgressions are blotted out of existence. By Spiritual death with Christ– in Baptism. And by the physical death – of yourflesh.

And so we come back to the question I asked earlier – from dust you are. And to dust you shall return.

That is to say, you’re going to die. And that’s good news (though it doesn’t sound like it). Because that means that the thing, the person, that yoursins have made youinto – that you yourself, doesn’t have to plague you for eternity. That you don’t have to live for eternity feelingforeverguilty. But that thatpersonreally, actually, in baptism yes, and also in your physical death when it comes - will die – will be put off, and will be blotted out of existence,along with all of those sins, all of that guilt, all of that shame, and all of that sorrow. And that’s good news. That’s GOSPEL. It’s the good news that you don’t have to keep trying to rid your hoodie of it’s mustard stains. It’s the good news that you’ve been made free in Christ to throw it away because you’vebeen given a new one for free that CANNOT BE STAINED. And this too, happens in Baptism, yes. Out of that same water that He killed you with, so God also creates youanew in His Son. And you rise from out of that water, born again, of water and the Spirit, clean – in all righteousness and purity, to live before God forever. But also in our physical resurrection. When we are risen in Christ from out of our graves, and made transformed into a resurrected glory just like His.

And so, just as we did last year – as I place these ashes upon your face, reminding you of your origin and your destination, FROM dust and TOdust, I want you to first know that your death, as a Christian, is actually good news for you. And secondly then, I want you to go straight over to that baptismal font, OR let’s call it what it is, that resurrection font,and wash it right off your face, knowing that the Gospel does not leave you in your death, but raises you from it, washes it off of you, and makes you - actually - CLEAN. And that, is good news.

For this day, God has given you what the Psalmist prayed for, a blotting out of your sin, and a creation of a clean and pure heart. What was stained with sin has been put to death. And what has been created a new, cannot be stained.

So go forth now, rememberingthat you will die. But know that as you die, - BEHOLD,you live.

You are clean. You are Baptized. You are forgiven.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

Amen.