Ash Wednesday

*Greeting

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

And also with you.

Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.

God’s mercy endures forever.

*Prayer for the Day

O God,

maker of everything

and judge of all that you have made,

from the dust of the earth you formed us

and from the dust of death you would raise us up.

By the redemptive power of the cross,

create in us a clean heart

and put within us a new spirit,

that we may repent of our sins

and lead lives worthy of your calling;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

*Hymn “I Want to Walk as a Child of Light” #206

Old Testament Lesson Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 (CEB)

1 Blow the horn in Zion;

give a shout on my holy mountain!

Let all the people of the land tremble,

for the day of the Lord is coming.

It is near—

2 a day of darkness and no light,

a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Like blackness spread out upon the mountains,

a great and powerful army comes,

unlike any that has ever come before them,

or will come after them in centuries ahead.

12 Yet even now, says the Lord,

return to me with all your hearts,

with fasting, with weeping, and with sorrow;

13 tear your hearts

and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

very patient, full of faithful love,

and ready to forgive.

14 Who knows whether he will have a change of heart

and leave a blessing behind him,

a grain offering and a drink offering

for the Lord your God?

15 Blow the horn in Zion;

demand a fast;

request a special assembly.

16 Gather the people;

prepare a holy meeting;

assemble the elders;

gather the children,

even nursing infants.

Let the groom leave his room

and the bride her chamber.

17 Between the porch and the altar

let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep.

Let them say, “Have mercy, Lord, on your people,

and don’t make your inheritance a disgrace,

an example of failure among the nations.

Why should they say among the peoples,

‘Where is their God?’”

Epistle Lesson 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10 (CEB)

5-20 So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!” 21 God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. 6-1 Since we work together with him, we are also begging you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 He says, I listened to you at the right time, and I helped you on the day of salvation. Look, now is the right time! Look, now is the day of salvation!

3 We don’t give anyone any reason to be offended about anything so that our ministry won’t be criticized. 4 Instead, we commend ourselves as ministers of God in every way. We did this with our great endurance through problems, disasters, and stressful situations. 5 We went through beatings, imprisonments, and riots. We experienced hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger. 6 We displayed purity, knowledge, patience, and generosity. We served with the Holy Spirit, genuine love, 7 telling the truth, and God’s power. We carried the weapons of righteousness in our right hand and our left hand. 8 We were treated with honor and dishonor and with verbal abuse and good evaluation. We were seen as both fake and real, 9 as unknown and well known, as dying—and look, we are alive! We were seen as punished but not killed, 10 as going through pain but always happy, as poor but making many rich, and as having nothing but owning everything.

*Hymn “We’ve a Story to Tell the Nations” #569

Gospel Lesson Matthew 4:1-11 (CEB)

1Then the Spirit led Jesus up into the wilderness so that the devil might tempt him. 2 After Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights, he was starving. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “Since you are God’s Son, command these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God.”

5 After that the devil brought him into the holy city and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, 6 “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down; for it is written, I will command my angels concerning you, and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”

7 Jesus replied, “Again it’s written, Don’t test the Lord your God.”

8 Then the devil brought him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 He said, “I’ll give you all these if you bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus responded, “Go away, Satan, because it’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” 11 The devil left him, and angels came and took care of him.

Video: Dust (Shift Media; 1min)

Sermon “Ash Wednesday”

I want to begin with a question tonight as we prepare to receive the imposition of ashes in just a few moments and that question is this: What exactly is “Ash Wednesday”? And the first of many sub questions to that is, “Where does Ash Wednesday come from?” Now if you were to scour the pages of the Bible, you would not find a passage anywhere that says, “Thou shalt observe an Ash Wednesday to mark the season of Lent.” But while it might not be in the Bible, some of its ideas are.

So what is Ash Wednesday? Well, Ash Wednesday has its origins in the early Christian Church—somewhere between the sixth and eight centuries. And originally, the idea was that a Christian, as a sign of repentance, would sprinkle ashes on his or her head.

Where did this idea come from? In the Bible, ashes were always associated with humility and mortality, fasting and remorse. We see this played out in the life of Job. You see, if you had sinned against God, and you felt remorse about that sin, and you were repenting of that sin, then sometimes you would sprinkle ashes on your head as a sign of sorrow and repentance. Ashes were supposed to remind you that you are mortal, and that you will eventually become ashes after you die. I know, a great way to start the message right? When we understand that we’re only ashes, the need to repent of our sins now while God gives us a time of grace becomes more real and urgent.

During 6th or 7th centuries, Christian churches thought about this idea. People, in private, would sprinkle ashes on themselves as a sign of repentance. Eventually, this became a very public practice, and instead of sprinkling the ashes on your head, the ashes would be rubbed onto the forehead in the shape of a cross. It was a sign of repentance, and a reminder of your baptism, when the sign of the cross was placed on you with water and the Word. The next logical question is, where do the ashes come from? The ashes that we will use tonight were taken from the palm branches from last Palm Sunday that my kids and I burned just a few days ago. By using the palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration, we are reminded of how quickly our cheers of excitement can turn into tears of despair and how shouts of life transform into the reality of death.

Some churches today have retained this practice, while others have let the practice go. In our church, as you can see, we still mark the beginning of the Lenten season with an Ash Wednesday Service because we believe that it actually can be quite valuable for people who are doing it for the right reasons. But please hear me when I say this, because what is really important, is not whether you have ashes on your forehead, but what is going on in your soul.

As I said before, for Christians, ashes or not, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a forty day span of time from now until Easter. During this time, we focus on our relationship with God and the battle that Jesus waged against the devil and sin so that he would win for us our salvation. Now I will tell you that, the 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays, because each Sunday is considered a “miniature Easter”, or “a mini-resurrection,” a time of joy and celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

So why 40 days? Right after Jesus was baptized, the Bible tells us that Jesus went out into the desert to fast for 40 days and it when he was at his lowest point that he was tempted by the Devil. For Jesus, those 40 days were a time of introspection, a time when he battled the temptations of the Devil and emerged stronger than he had been before.

For us, Lent is a time when we make that journey with Christ. We think about OUR temptations, our sins, and we repent. Hopefully after these 40 days, like Jesus, we will emerge stronger than we had been before.

Lent is a time to evaluate yourself in light of God’s Word. It’s a time to abandon the sins you have grown accustomed to committing in your life—sins of commission and omission, sins of actions and thought. It’s a time to receive God’s forgiveness and strength to lead a Christian life. It’s a time to renew your desire to serve God, and to be the Christian that God has made you to be.

So tonight we begin this season of lent, and we begin by taking a close look at ourselves, and asking ourselves some hard questions—what are our sins? Or to get more personal, ask yourself, what are MY sins. Where am I “not so Christian” in my life? What kind of person am I? Am I really loving? Do I show that in my words and actions? Am I really patient? Do I really love God more than anything else in my life? Do I make sacrifices for God? Am I peaceful? Or, do I like to fight, to assert my will over other people? What kind of person am I? What are my weaknesses? What are my sins? Where do I need to get better in my life?

You see, this is the first part of repentance, the first part of Lent, is for you to look at yourself and to recognize your sins. And then comes the second—to look away from yourself, and to Christ. The prophet Isaiah in chapter 59, verses 15-16 (CEB) says this:

15The Lord looked and was upset at the absence of justice.

16 Seeing that there was no one,

and astonished that no one would intervene,

God’s arm brought victory,

upheld by righteousness,

You see, before Jesus became a man, God looked out over the world and saw all our sin, and God was appalled at what He saw. And what appalled God the most, was that there was no one to intervene, no one to rescue humanity from its sins.

So in the fullness of time, God sent his son Jesus so that we might receive the intervention and the salvation that we so desperately needed—family this is the message of hope that we find even in the darkness of the cross. You see, because of Christ’s substitutionary atonement, where Jesus took our sin upon himself, Jesus is called the Redeemer.

More than a century ago, an evangelist preached a stirring sermon on the theme of the blood of Christ as the only means of salvation. After the service, a refined and fashionably dressed woman approached the evangelist and said something to the effect of: “I wish you would not speak so much about the blood of Christ. It nauseates ladies and gentlemen.” To this the preacher replied, “But Christ didn’t die for ladies and gentlemen; He died for sinners.”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was honoring member of the Royal Air Force who had defended Britain during World War II. Recounting their brave service, he declared, “Never in the history of mankind has so many owed so much too so few.” A similar sentiment appears on a memorial plaque in Bastogne, Belgium, where raged the famous Battle of the Bulge, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Second World War. The inscription, in honor of the United States 101st Airborne Division, reads: “Seldom has so much American blood been shed in the course of a single action. Oh, Lord, help us to remember!” Those are fitting and well-deserved tributes to the courageous men and women who sacrificed so much for their country.

But as I think about them, I also remember the One whose selfless sacrifice resulted in benefits for people of all nations for all time. Jesus Christ, the sinless One died on a cross and shed His blood to pay the penalty for our sins. In so doing, He guaranteed our freedom… freedom from the penalty, power, and, someday, even the presence of sin.[1]

So what is the message for those who do repent, who take a hard look at themselves, acknowledge their sins, and turn to Christ for forgiveness and help to live a new life? What is the message for them? What is the message for us tonight as we start this 40 day journey? Verse 20 of Isaiah 59 (NIV) tells us: “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares the Lord.” Christ will come to you, your Redeemer, and he will grant to you salvation forever.

You see, lent is that spiritual time when you do some “spring cleaning” in your soul. You look deep within yourself, and acknowledge your sins. And then you look to Christ, who won the battle for you, and you receive his forgiveness—the forgiveness of sins that was won for you on the cross. Lent is a time when you grow in your appreciation of all that Christ has done for you, and not only do you become more aware of your sins, but you also become more aware of just how much your Lord Jesus loves you—so much so that he would do all these things for you.

The last part of Lent, is leaving that sin behind. Quitting the sin you have acknowledged in your life. Some have compared it to quitting smoking. It’s a very difficult thing to do sometimes—to quit a certain sin, to leave a favorite sin behind. But in these next 40 days, what I want to suggest that you do is this: If you want to give up something for Lent, give up a half hour a day—and during that half hour, read a half a chapter a day from the book of John every day—just a half of a chapter—it will take you 40 days to do it. Read those verses slowly, and think about the words you are reading, and then, in light of the words you just read, evaluate yourself. Think of your sins, and then rejoice in Christ’s forgiveness. Let God strengthen you through His Word this Lenten season. Let God help you to “quit that certain sin” you want to be rid of in your life. That is what Lent is all about and why we are here tonight.

Observation of Lenten Discipline

And so I ask, are you ready? Do you this day and in this place claim the forgiveness and love that has been given to us through the sacrifice of God’s only son? If you are ready, hear now this call to observance:

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now humble ourselves before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

Prayer Over the Ashes:

You will now join me in the prayer over the ashes that can be found in your bulletin.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty God,

you have created us out of the dust of the earth.

Grant that these ashes may be to us

a sign of our mortality and penitence,

so we may remember that only by your gracious gift

are we given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ

our Savior. Amen.

The Imposition Of Ashes:

+Tonight as we move towards the imposition of ashes—placing a cross on one’s forehead or hand as a symbol of repentance—I want to invite you to take some time for reflection and prayer. And as you feel led, I welcome you to come forward and claim the power of the cross for yourself.

As they come forward say: Repent and believe the Gospel or Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Prayer of Confession: Psalms 51:1-17 #785

Assurance of Pardon:

May the Almighty and merciful God,

who desires not the death of a sinner

but that we turn from wickedness and live,

accept you repentance, forgive your sins,

and restore you by the name of the Holy Spirit to

newness of life. Amen.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

*Hymn: “Just As I Am” #357

*Prayer of Thanksgiving:

All things come from you, O God,

and with praise and thanksgiving we return to you

what is yours.

You created all that is, and with love formed us in

your image.

When our love failed, your love remained steadfast.

You gave your only son Jesus Christ to be our savior,

that we might have abundant and eternal life.

All that we are, and all we have, is a trust from you.

And so, in gratitude for all that you have done,

we offer you ourselves, and all that we have,

in union with Christ’s offering for us.

By your Holy Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each

other, and one in ministry to all the world;

through Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray:

*The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Hymn: “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days” #269

Benediction:

[1] https://hiseternalword.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-redemptive-work-of-jesus-christ/ (visited on 2-10-2016 at 10:42AM)