Ash Wednesday 2008

Ash Wednesday

Febrauary 6, 2008

The Ashes of Paradise Lost

Introduction: Christmas is long finished, Epiphany over, Lent and Ash Wednesday or Ash Thursday, if you will, stand at the door. They stand at the door and knock, but the question is: Will you let them in? Will you let these next forty days have their way with you, or will you have your way with them? Will it be a season of repentance for you, or will you season your repentance with excuses to make it a bit easier to swallow?

Hard questions, yet good questions to ask as we begin Lent again. This Lent we will journey back to the time of Genesis. There we will see the beauty of God’s creation; we will see the beauty that we were originally created with. Then we will see the ugliness of man’s sin, our sin. As we do, we will hear the promise of God, that out of His love for us He would send a Savior to make all things beautiful again. This was His promise. Jesus was the promises fulfillment. The first promise of the Savior was given in a garden, the Garden of Eden which was lost to us in the ashes of Paradise lost.

Sin entered the world. God was not pleased, “By the sweat of your face,” God told guilty Adam, “you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Adam to dust, Eve to dirt, so go our father and mother, so it goes for us. Ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden their exiled children could chant:

Ring around the Garden, Souls in need of pardon,

Ashes, ashes, We all fall down.

Down into sadness, down into sin, down into the graves of death…paradise Lost. O Adam, what have you done? O Eve, why did you do it? In love the Father created you both in his own image and likeness, gave you paradise. As it was in heaven it was on earth. Was that not good enough for you? In love the Father gave you bodies and souls, wisdom and beauty, innocence and purity. Were these gifts somehow not up to par? In love the Father planted the Garden called Eden, gave you this little piece of heaven on earth as your home sweet home. But a perfect Paradise was not up to your standards, was it? In love the Father gave you one to another, man to woman and woman to man, that you might live in an unending honeymoon of wedded bliss. Was your union flawed, your perfect spouse not quite perfect enough for you? In love the Father gave you every single tree of Eden for food, except one. Was he tightfisted, holding out on you, by keeping from you that which would only work everlasting harm and bring everlasting death? O Adam, what have you done? O Eve, why did you do it?

Have you asked these questions? Why don’t we ask ourselves, O sons of Adam, O daughters of Eve? Or do we think we can remove the speck from our own parents’ eyes while a log sticks out of your own? At least Eve took the fruit to gain (what she thought would be) wisdom; but we, in our stupidity, boast of a wisdom we do not have. Our mother Eve, saw that the fruit was a delight to the eyes, but we’ll lick our lips at something dog-ugly so long as it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Yes, Adam should have spoken up to warn his wife, to forbid her from doing such an evil deed; but what do we, his sons, do? We out-Adam Adam, for we elbow our Eves out of the way so that we might be first in line to sink our teeth into forbidden fruit.

Adam and Eve went up the hill, To fetch a pail of poison,

Down they fell and humored hell, And we’ve come tumbling after.

Tumbling out of Eden, exiled from the Paradise God wanted us to enjoy, living now in a wild and hostile jungle, a wilderness of sin, where the king of beasts Satan roars, seeking someone—like you—like me, to devour.

Repent. For dust you are but to worse than dust you shall soon return, if you don’t receive the grace of Jesus Christ. Return, man of dust, to the good and gracious God who formed you and breathed into your nostrils the Spirit of life. Return to your Father who stands daily, gazing out the window, eagerly awaiting you, his prodigal children, to come home from the pigsty. Come home, fallen Adams and Eves, come home to Eden, to the garden prepared and still kept for you.

Do you fear the anger of the almighty Judge, who exiled you from the perfect garden and can exile you from His presence into the pit of hell? Fear not, for his anger has been spent—fully spent—upon his Son, the second Adam. For “Christ, the second Adam, came To bear our sin and woe and shame, To be our life, our light, our way, Our only hope, our only stay” (LSB 562:4).

Do you fear the angels, who long ago were posted with flaming swords in their hands, keeping Adam and Eve’s children out of the garden? Fear not, for these angels have hammered their swords into trumpets, announcing your return from exile, as the Church sings, “O, where is your sting, death? We fear you no more; Christ rose, and now open is fair Eden’s door” (LSB 480:4, copyright © 1941 CPH). You are and will be escorted back to paradise by the very angels that once blocked your way.

Do you fear the ancient serpent, Satan, who beguiled Eve and defiled Adam, who sank his fangs so deep into humanity that his poison still courses through our veins? Do you fear him? Fear not, for “the God of peace has crushed Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). Indeed, the heel of the woman’s Seed, Jesus, has smashed the skull of that slithering devil even as He died on the cross for the sins of the world. His blessed heel has absorbed the venom of those hellish fangs and His resurrection proclaims His victory and our pardon for sin. He has opened the gates of paradise for the children of Adam and Eve.

Fear not. For your exile from Eden has come to an end. On the cross, Jesus spoke to the thief, “Today, you shall be with Jesus in paradise. These words apply to us as well.

Kiss the jungle good-bye. The world and wilderness of sin has no claim over you know. Step once more into the Garden that God himself calls home. That garden is the church, the very door of paradise found. Here in the Eden of the Church, you are truly home. God has prepared a table before you beneath the branches of the tree of life, in the shadow of the cross. Take, eat, dine on its fruit, and be filled with the life of the One who gave up his life on its branches. Take, drink, and quench your thirst in the crimson fruit of the vine. Here is the forgiving feast of Paradise regained.

For forty day we will journey through Lent, we hear the real stories of Genesis and find ourselves, our lives, our sin, our hopes and our fears. We will see our Savior Jesus. As Lent unfolds, the salvation of our God, promised in the Garden and fulfilled in Adam’s son Jesus, is proclaimed again and believed by us through faith. We will again center our faith in Jesus Christ.

By the sweat of his face, like drops of blood, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, has earned for you the bread of life. In love, he has earned your way back into the Eden of God’s presence, from which you formerly were banned. In love, he has crushed the head of the serpent. In love, he has bid the angels sheathe their swords. In pure and perfect love, he has made everything ready for you, his beloved Eve, his bride, the Church. Welcome back from exile. Welcome back to Eden. Paradise lost is paradise regained by Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.