Ash Wednesday

Richard Davenport March 2, 2022 - Ash Wednesday Luke 22:1-13 Lent Series In the beautiful rhythm of the church year, here we are again. It's Lent, a time to reflect and repent, to pray and to praise, to recall and rejoice in our Lord Jesus as he moves humbly toward the cross and powerfully in victory from the grave. Lent leads us to Easter. It's a time for blessing, as we wait for the return of our Jesus. Here's another blessing. The Holy Spirit gave to us not one, but FOUR books, FOUR Gospels. Each of them is about the same Jesus. Each of them tells of Jesus's movement toward the cross and his bursting forth from the tomb. And yet, each of them is like a beautiful painting or a portrait of Jesus from a slightly different angle. They complement one another-but each gives us its own beautiful perspective for Lent and Easter. This year, we will follow the leading of the Gospel according to Luke. This evening, on Ash Wednesday, as we begin our Lenten journey toward Easter-how shall we sum up Luke's inspired presentation of Jesus? Before answering that, let me ask another question. Do you recall the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis? Here's a quick summary. Joseph was the favored son of his father, Jacob. His older brothers resented him (and Joseph wasn't faultless in this, of course). But his brothers' hatred grew-so they abused him (evil!), sold him as a slave to traders going to Egypt (evil!), poured animal blood on his coat and told their father Jacob that Joseph has been killed by wild beasts (evil!). In Egypt Joseph's life was up and down, but finally through God's blessing, he rose to prominence in Egypt and God used Joseph's planning and wisdom to save many people from starving to death-including his own father and the brothers who had done such evil things to him. Then Jacob, the father dies. And Joseph's brothers are afraid that now, Joseph will take his revenge on them. But he doesn't. He says something to them, about their history and about the years that have gone by. He says, "You meant evil against me. But God meant it for good." Now don't misunderstand Joseph's words. His brothers meant evil against him-and it was evil. They meant evil, and they did evil. God didn't change that part-not at all. But God used the evil for a larger purpose even when no one knew what God was up to. Everyone was clueless as to what God was going to do-but God was not clueless. God never is. It's Lent, and we're going to ponder Luke 22 and 23, and on into the victory of Luke 24. We'll begin by reflecting on the reading you have heard, and we will see some very important truths here. The first truth is this. It's time for a greater Passover. Now, Luke goes out of his way to mention no less than five times that it's a particular time of year, and that a particular festival is about to happen: Passover. He says it in verse 1, and then in verses 7 and 8 and 11 and 13. And there's a lot you could say about the Passover, but I'll just say this. Passover was the time when Israel remembered. They remembered that they were living under the thumb, under the power of evil. They were slaves in Egypt, centuries before the night that Luke is describing. Evil had come against them; evil was done to them. Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt resisted God's plan to set his people Israel free. Even though God sent plague after plague, Pharaoh's heart was hard. And even after Pharaoh allowed Israel to leave ... he changed his mind and hunted them down and chased them through the middle of the Red Sea. He tried to enslave them. He meant to destroy them. Pharaoh wanted to put Israel to death. He meant evil-but God meant it for good, to save Israel, and Pharaoh and his host he drowned in the sea. And God's people were rescued, they stepped out onto dry land, they passed through death and out into life with their God. Their enemies meant it for evil. But God meant it for good. What God did at Passover long before, what God did through the Exodus from Egypt, God is going to do in a greater way in Jesus, in his Son. That's the first truth that emerges from our reading. It's Passover and it's time for a greater salvation, a greater deliverance than ever before, a greater movement into death, and out again into life. Here's the second truth. Evil is going to come against Jesus. Evil men of every sort, and Luke emphasizes that the evil one, Satan himself, is the driving force behind the plan to destroy Jesus. Just look at the line-up of evil in these verses. Verse 2-here at the Passover, "the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people." The priests and the scholars who were supposed to guide and uphold the people and prepare them to receive their own Messiah-these men now are looking for a way to put him to death. And Luke says, "for they feared the people." Did they think that the people would defend Jesus, would stop them from doing evil to him? If they thought that, they overestimated the faith and the courage of the people. But it's not just these twisted religious leaders. Luke rushes on; verse 3: "Then Satan entered Judas called Iscariot." Satan! He has been the evil "strong man" who hates God and his ways, and who makes people his captives. In Luke 13 Jesus healed a woman whom Satan had bound with illness for eighteen years. In Luke 10 Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples, and they cast out demons, and Jesus said that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Satan is the strong man, but Jesus is the stronger man who has come to bind Satan. And now the evil one engages in the battle to destroy Jesus. And Satan uses ... Judas! We may be so accustomed to the story that we don't even feel the shock and the tragedy of that. Even though he was one of the twelve ... Judas! We don't know and we mustn't guess how it happened ... but Judas! And he approaches the chief priests and together they make a plan. They think they need to avoid a crowd-but the crowd will turn on Jesus, too, and cry out for him to be crucified. At the first Passover in Egypt, the evil was bad enough. Now, that evening long ago, it's worse. Evil is coming-against Jesus. And now a beautiful third truth from this reading. This third truth is made all the more wonderful because of the second truth we just highlighted, that is, the evil in verses 2 through 6. That evil is like the darkness that grows all around you when thunderstorms are building and rushing toward you. Human enemies. A human traitor. The great supernatural enemy. These are all allied, joined together whether they know it or not--against Jesus. And as we know, their plan is going to work even better than they hoped and probably prayed for. Because the people will not defend Jesus; the crowd, too, will cry out for his death, his destruction. Verses 2 through 6 of the reading are filled with evil that is going to happen. But the third truth emerges when at verse 7 and then four more times, Luke emphasizes something. Five different times, Luke tells us that everything is ready; things are prepared. "Prepare the Passover ... Where shall we prepare? ... A large upper room furnished ... prepare there ... and they prepared the Passover." Prepared. Ready. Now we can't be sure about one point here. It's certainly possible that the Lord Jesus is here exercising his power as the Son of God to predict what will happen: "A man will meet you, follow him, the master of the house will show you," and so on. But Luke doesn't say that, and it could also be very ordinary, in a way. The Lord Jesus has made arrangements. He has made sure that things are ready. He's made sure that everything is prepared. And that is because Jesus is ready; Jesus is prepared. He knows about the evil, he knows what is coming, he knows that all he will have left is to trust ... and to know ... that the Father's plan is coming true, that the Father's plan will come true. That's why in Luke and only in Luke, the last thing that Jesus says from the cross is, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Evil is coming, and God's plan-GOD'S PLAN-is for evil to do its worst, for sin and Satan to rule. Jesus says this, only in Luke when he is arrested, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." But Jesus is ready. And he knows that in this greater rescue than Joseph accomplished for his brothers, in this greater exodus than Moses performed, Jesus knows that his enemies meant everything for evil, and that they would do the ultimate evil. But his Father meant it for good, and the greatest salvation of all will come. Peter thinks that he is ready to die with Jesus, but he is not. The women don't believe that Jesus will rise from the dead, and so they get spices ready and on that first Easter, they are ready to anoint the corpse of Jesus. But they were wrong. Jesus is ready to face the evil and take it into himself. And he knows that God the Father will raise him from the dead and give a victory over sin and evil that will never pass away. Everything is now ready. What part are we tempted to play in the evil that comes against Jesus? We'll explore that this Lenten season, and by God's grace, once again we'll repent and turn away from that evil, whatever form it takes in our lives. What doubts plague you, as you see the power of evil in our world? How often does fear cripple us, and deceive us into thinking that maybe God can be taken off guard, that he wasn't ready for the evil this time? This Lenten season we'll open up our fears, our doubts, and we'll give them to Jesus because he has undone the evil, because he lives forever. And because he lives, nothing-not death or life or Satan or struggle or anything-nothing can separate us from God's love in his crucified, risen, ascended, returning Son. Our Jesus. Who was ready. When the Lenten journey is done, how will our faith be different? Well, in the most important way of thinking, Christian faith is never different-it's always the same, holding on to God's promises and relying utterly on Jesus. But this Lent we can pray that our faith will grow, and our grip will tighten as we hold on to Jesus. And we can pray that our mouths will be opened, and we will say to Satan, and to every enemy, and strangely even to ourselves: "You can't take God by surprise. Jesus is ever ready, ever ready to save and redeem. You meant it for evil. But God meant it for good." In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.