Ash Wednesday (2022)

Ashes to Ashes

In the time of Jonah, he was called to visit the city of Nineveh who had committed great evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord was planning to use Jonah to call the sinners in this city to repentance. Now Jonah had thought that it would be meaningless for him to do this, and he feared for his life, but so God first showed him that there was hope for repentance with the pagan sailors, when they saw the fury and the terror of God in the storm that threatened to swamp their boat, and saw his power and majesty after they threw Jonah in the water and it all stopped in a moment. They repented of their paganism and offered sacrifices to the true and living God.

But now Jonah has come to the city of Nineveh, and he goes throughout the city for 3 days, preaching this message of repentance that the Lord was going to visit his wrath upon this great city unless they repent, and the Word takes root in their hearts. The people realize their sinfulness, they dress in rags from the greatest to the least, and even the king sits amongst the ashes in grief over their sins. God then relents of the disaster that he had planned for that great city and shows them mercy. God does not desire the death of the wicked but their repentance.

The season of Lent is meant to be a time that we reflect on our sinfulness, and our iniquities that we might be grieved over these sins against God. We pause for a moment to consider the gravity of our sins. We want to pause and reflect on the seriousness of sin, and remember that it is not just some small thing, but it is the reason that every man, woman, and child will die as we come under God’s wrath.

When we confess that we deserve all temporal and eternal punishment. We may pass by those words rather quickly not considering what they mean. What we are confessing is that we don’t get to say life is unfair, we aren’t surprised by our sufferings, but we admit they are just and right. Be it cancers, the death of loved ones, pain, sickness, and the like, that is what our sins have deserved. Now the world takes offense and wonders how can we say that?

Consider for a moment, we are horrified if someone who is innocent suffers. We consider that a grave injustice, and if a person who is guilty gets away with what they did to the innocent person, that infuriates us. How can that be just or proper? Like David we shout out that the man who has committed evil deserves to die, but in Lent we are called to remember that you and I we are that man. For we have not sinned against a fellow human, who is a sinner like me, but we have sinned against the creator, sinned against the one who gave us every good thing and sinned against the one who has done no wrong.

Thoughtlessly taking His name in vain, and using that name which is to blessed above all others as a curse. More than that, we disregard His sabbath, a day of rest for people, a day where we set aside our labors and our business as a confession that we do not need to labor every day to be safe, instead we do not trust God’s providence instead of having a day where we gather together and hear his word and be united with our brothers and sisters in Christ, thanking God with joyful hearts for all he has done, we ignore Him.

This is to say nothing of those in authority over us, and treating them with respect and decency, caring for the body God gave our neighbor, and about what happens to them, or keeping our bodies and our minds free of sexual immorality and we shy away from standing up for what is right, and let our neighbors walk into fires of hell without saying a word. When God has charged us to care for them and to warn them away from the danger.

Now you might think, yes but everyone does these things, all sin, I am no worse, than my neighbor in fact I know neighbors who are worse.” Indeed they are a sinner like you, but their sins do not change the fact that on account of your sins the wrath of God is pointed at you, like it was pointed at Nineveh. For it would be a terrible for sin to go unpunished especially when it is against someone who is innocent, like God.

It is tempting when we read the Bible to identify with the people who are victims of the sins of others or the people in their greatest moments, but in Lent we are reminded that we are not like the heroes of the Bible in their great and spectacular moments, but we are like Jonah who flees and didn’t want to adhere to the Word of the Lord, we are like David when he was tempted and fell, Peter when he denied Christ, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees who thought they were keeping the Law of God, and cried out Crucify him. We are sinners.

So repent, repent of your sins, see the evil that they are and confess that you are a sinner in truth, and that because of that we deserve nothing but God’s wrath. There is no one else to blame for your sins, for your failings. That is why the people of Nineveh were called to put on sackcloth and ashes, not a feigned repentance but it flowed out of their realization that God was truly angry with them on account of their sins.

If they were to do this falsely or just for show then God would not have relented of the disaster that he was going to bring against them, and they would be condemned by Christ’s Words in our gospel lesson that they should not disfigure their faces for show. But if ashes can be misused, that means they also have a proper use. This is vitally important for us to understand.

It would be wrong for us to receive ashes on our foreheads for the sake of attention or fitting in, but if we receive them because we are grieving our sins, and we recognize that we truly are nothing but dust and to dust we shall return. That is what we deserve on account of our sins is to perish, then we plead for mercy.

Not on the basis of who we are, or what we have done, or anything that we have accomplished, but we plead for mercy on account of the only-begotten son of God who loved us, and gave up his life for us. Who gives to us ashen sinners, his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. For he went down into the dust of death with us, and He rose again. We despair of ourselves entirely for we are nothing, just ash.

Which is why tonight you will be able to wash those ashes off your foreheads, and when you wash away the ashes, remember when the sign of the Cross was made upon your forehead and upon your heart on the day of your baptism to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified. When that washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit washed away all of your sins and gave to you eternal life. So even though you will be laid down in the dust of the grave, you will rise.

For even though we deserved all temporal and eternal punishment for our sins and our failings. The Son of God became flesh to suffer on your account. Jesus did this because of His great love for you. Jesus laid down his life for you because he considered you his dear friend. Now, you might ask well why, I haven’t been a good friend, I know how I would treat friends who sinned against me. That is because of your sinful heart, but Christ’s heart is pure, and it is His love for you, that motivates Him to walk the road to Jerusalem and go to the Cross. He came into this world to save sinners and to bear your punishment that you might be saved.

This is why Lent is an important season, and an important time to meditate upon our sins, and think upon them. Not for the sake of the just being depressed and weighed down with sorrow, but to understand what Jesus is doing. For if your sins are small, then you will not understand how great his sacrifice is for you. But if you see your sins, and the evil that they are, then you will understand how much He loves you. So I would encourage you to pick a sin you struggle with and fight against it, and it will amaze you how hard it is to stop it i thought, word and deed. You will fail time and time again, but most importantly you will be brought to the Cross again and again, and see that Jesus is there for you.

So my brothers and sisters in Christ, we who are but dust and ashes may we fix our eyes on Jesus this season as we meditate upon the road that he walks to Jerusalem, and that He goes there for you. Jesus suffers for you, Jesus dies for you, and Jesus will finally rise for you. Jesus will endure all of these things because He considers you His dear friend. In Jesus name. Amen.