Ash Wednesday B 2024

Ash Wednesday, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Have you ever had to explain Lent to someone who doesn’t practice it? How do you explain it? Every year when Lent begins, I am reminded of the conversation I had with my Baptist-to-the-core mother-in-law, trying to explain the season of Lent. I began with a rather bland “it’s about more than just giving up chocolate; it’s about getting rid of the things that are in the way of your relationship with Christ. It’s about re-dedicating yourself to prayer and reading your Bible. It’s about trying to grow in your life of faith.” To this day, I remember her response clearly: “well if it’s about doing the things you’re supposed to be doing as a Christian, why don’t you just do them all the time? Why only once a year?” That made me wince a little. It hurt.

But God is good — all the time… and He helped me with a metaphor that I think works very well. So I asked her: “do you keep your house clean most or all of the time? If so, then do you also do spring cleaning?” I know it’s not the perfect example, but I think it’s helpful. It’s a deep cleaning - that once-a-year look at what really needs to be worked on. What have I gotten lazy about, what have I been neglecting? Or even what haven’t I started doing yet that I really should? Lent is the perfect time to ask these questions and find the answers. That is precisely what this time is for.

We begin the Ash Wednesday liturgy with Psalm 51 - King David’s psalm of confession, and we follow that with an extended confession of our own. We are laying our sins bare before God and each other. And notice that we didn’t hear a declaration of grace tonight? That is being withheld for now; we’ll hear the word of forgiveness on Monday Thursday. For now, we are to reflect on these sins that we have confessed, and Lent is to be spent in repentance - making the change to our lives to make sure that we are not repeating these sins. It’s been said that Lutherans are spectacular when it comes to confession - we do that really well. We’re not so good, however, at repentance. There’s our first challenge for this season.

Now I want to look at the first reading tonight - Joel chapter 2. The reading begins with “…return to me with all your heart...”. The two points in this one phrase sum up the whole season.

“Return to me” - to God, who is inviting us back to Himself. Joel, who is God’s messenger delivering this message, has been (up to this point) telling God’s sinful people about the destruction that is about to come upon them for their sinful ways. And so here is this prophet bringing the message from the Almighty Himself saying “that disaster is my last resort to get your attention. You’re heading down a path of self-destruction, because you’re ignoring my laws. If I have to, I will cause some real chaos and upheaval so that you don’t completely destroy yourselves…but I’d rather not. So if you want to give me another option, COME BACK TO ME.”

To turn back to God is the very definition of the word “repent”. And that is what this season is all about - returning to God and following His ways. Think about that - all the talk of “Lenten Discipline” is exactly what God wants for all of us - to walk closer to Him, to speak to Him in prayer, and to listen to Him by reading His Word… to grow in faith and to live as He wants us to live. Exactly what He instructed His chosen people to do from the beginning, but also exactly what He invited His chosen people to do each time they had turned their backs on Him, and He was left with no choice but to punish them…severely… “Return to me” is not a command but an invitation by a merciful God. It is a reminder that He will always welcome us back to Him.

“…with all your heart...” is the next part. Luther interprets this to mean: “with your whole heart, without pretending but truly, without any hypocrisy.” God doesn’t deal kindly with hypocrites (as we see in the Gospel lesson today) because what they do is all for show. It’s on the surface. They put on a good act, but their hearts just aren’t in it. That’s not what God wants.

The verse goes on: “…with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” These are all signs of someone who’s heart is truly sad. In this case, the prophet is telling the people to be sorry for the wrongs they have committed against God. Recognize your sins, and actually be sorry for them. Mourn for your disobedience to God. Feel deeply in your heart the hurt that you have caused your relationship with your Heavenly Father…so much that it makes you weep. As a spiritual exercise, you should also fast - deprive yourself of pleasantries and comfort so that you may focus on your spiritual needs alone and save the physical needs for later. Luther continues: “‘Unless these [acts] come from a right heart, they are hypocrisy. They accomplish nothing.’ A genuine conversion, however, is later indicated by those external signs. The Holy Spirit has beautifully described conversion in such a way that the heart first repents truly, not [falsely]. Finally, it also shows faith outwardly by those works.” [Luther’s Works, Vol. 18, 96] It’s not the fasting, the weeping, or the mourning that *does* anything. What goes on in the heart of someone who is truly sorry for their sins…that leads them to mourn, and weep, and even to fast.

The verse ends with: “and rend your hearts and not your garments.” This perfectly punctuates the sentence. “He purposely makes this addition to condemn hypocrisy. It was a custom of the Jews to tear [“rend”] their clothing when they were afflicted or mourning over something. This is something [you can see] everywhere in sacred literature. With it writers would show a great and violent disturbance of the heart. But yet, from the long use of this practice, it had degenerated into hypocrisy.” [Ibid.] It had lost its meaning…it was just done for show. God doesn’t want the show; God wants the heart. God wants YOUR heart.

This is how we need to read the Gospel lesson. This is important because the world around us will use this passage to tell us to “keep that church stuff in your church…don’t bring it out here.” If you listen to what Jesus is saying, it’s really not about where you’re doing these things; it’s about whether or not your heart is in it, or if you’re just doing it for show. Jesus is saying that when you pray or fast or give to the poor, it’s better for no one else to see it, than for you to just do it for show. If you’re doing it when no one else is watching, then you’re doing it for the right reasons, and your heart is in it. If you’re only doing it *because* someone is watching, then your heart probably isn’t in it, and your reasons are suspect.

As I read this passage from Joel, and I think about what God was telling them about the coming destruction, I can’t help but think about our country. How much of our nation and our society has turned away from God? The fastest growing religious group is those who choose “none of the above” when asked which is their religious preference. Church attendance in our nation is on a steady decline, and society is becoming more and more Godless before our very eyes. And how is our country doing? I think we’re on a road to self-destruction. So we might be 2,500 years after Joel spoke these words to a disobedient and sinful nation, but the disobedient and sinful nation we currently live in needs to hear these words every bit as much today. And I’m not so sure that God’s punishment hasn’t already begun.

It falls to us, then, we who trust and believe in Christ and His atoning work for us to be the “remnant” - the faithful few who do try to turn to God and walk in His ways. Perhaps we ourselves have not committed all the sins that grieve our Heavenly Father, but we are not without sin. So let’s spend this season of Lent, beginning with the other sign of mourning - the ashes on our foreheads - to turn to God for the next 40 days in prayer, in repentance, and in reflection upon how we can grow closer to Him. Let’s walk away from the things that keep us from following His Will for our lives and for our church family. Let’s do our best to avoid the hypocrisy that’s so easy to fall into and live our lives of faith not for show, but for God.

Then, when we reach the end of the season of Lent, and we follow the story of the Passion of our Lord, we will be ready to receive His perfect forgiveness with open hearts, and then we can take that forgiveness out into the world. You know, that world that thinks it doesn’t want to be forgiven, but you and I both know that it desperately needs it. That, brothers and sisters, will be world-changing.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.