Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this day is focused upon our lesson from the prophet Joel:
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ” Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The Lord answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.My dear friends in Christ,
Ash Wednesday is always an interesting day. It has, usually, a bunch of services, lots of people, and, of course, ashes. It’s strange, isn’t it, that we put ashes on our foreheads? We will do that at the end of chapel today. But, why? Why should we do such a thing?
Ashes are messy and dirty. I was cleaning out my grill this spring, getting it ready for summer barbeques, and man was it dirty. I was getting down in the base of the grill, scrubbing and chipping away old fat from meat that had dripped down there. I stood up to wipe the sweat off my forehead. Then my wife came out to ask me something and she started laughing. I had wiped all the grill ash from my head all over my head. And it was hard to get off. It’s not easy. So, I scrubbed and I scrubbed and I scrubbed, and finally, the next day, after sleeping and showers, I finally couldn’t’ see it anymore.
Ashes are messy and dirty, it’s true, but they’re certainly easier to get off us than our sin. We are covered with the messiness and the dirtiness of sin. It’s not just on us, it’s in us. And everything we touch becomes tainted by us, infected by us. And as hard as we scrub, or as hard as we try to do good works instead of bad, or to do good works to make up for the bad, we won’t be free of our sin by ourselves. We can’t free ourselves from our sinful condition.
That’s what the ashes on our foreheads signify. When we put the ashes on us, we’re marking ourselves to say that we are sinful, and because we have to answer to God, we deserve to die. After all, remember all the way back to Adam and Eve. When they sinned, God reminded them of where they came from. God literally came down to earth, picked up some of the dust of the ground, and formed it into Adam and from Adam He formed Eve. They came from the ground, and in their sin they would return to the ground. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From dust you are, and to dust you shall return.
But, we don’t just leave it there, do we? If it were JUST about the ashes, we would cover ourselves sin them. But, remember, we make the ashes in the shape of the cross. The ashes remind you that you are sinful and deserve death, but the cross reminds you of your Jesus and how, though He was perfect, suffered for your sin and died for you. On the cross, Jesus took your place, the place you should have been for your sin and died. He did this out of His great love for you. He did this to show you mercy.
And you know what He does? He doesn’t just die, He takes away your sin. He’s like a giant sponge, sucking up all the sin from all time into Himself, and then He gives to you His righteousness. That righteousness, you get to wear like a robe. It’s as if He takes the old garments of sin off of you and places His righteousness, His holiness, His perfection over your shoulders like a mother covering her baby with a bath towel after getting all clean.
You don’t have to receive ashes to remember all this, or to be reminded of all this. You may do that in any way you choose. But, for those who do receive the ashes today, remember the cross. Remember that, in your Baptism, you were marked in the very same place on your forehead, with the sign of the cross. Though it appears dark and dirty and messy now, that cross is your salvation, for the cross is what we hold most dear. We love our Jesus, and we love His cross, for there salvation was won for you, and there the promise of everlasting life was given to you. In Christ, you are clean, and you don’t have to clean yourself anymore. Jesus has done it all, He has finished it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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