As we read
those last verses, the ones from Matthew, it may have occurred to some of you
to wonder, “Well, then what are we doing here?”
Because part of the Ash Wednesday service is, and always has been, that
we have ashes in the shape of a cross placed on our foreheads. That’s an obvious and visible sign to
everyone not just that we’re Christians, but that we’ve been to an Ash
Wednesday service. And yet, we just read
the words of Jesus that when we pray, when we fast, when we give, when we do
anything like that, we’re not supposed to let anyone know about it. We’re supposed to keep it secret. So how do we reconcile those two things?
Well, maybe that’s why we have this service at night. After all, most of us, once this is done, are
not going anywhere but home, so there are not a lot of people who are going to
see this sign anyway. Still, there are
churches where the Ash Wednesday service is in the morning, or at noon. So the question remains. How do we justify wearing this visible,
obvious sign of our faith in light of Jesus’ words?
I think the
thing we need to remember is the purpose of an Ash Wednesday service. When people in Jesus’ day would engage in fasting
and prayer they were, for the most part, following religious rituals. They were fulfilling an obligation given to
them by Jewish law.
Now, I’m sure
that, just like today, there were some who took this seriously and some who did
not. The ones who did not were the ones
Jesus was talking about. They were the
ones who, when they were praying, when they were fasting, when they gave, they
wanted to make sure everyone knew about it.
As the old joke goes, they were not confessing, they were bragging.
When we wear
ashes in the shape of a cross on our foreheads, we’re not bragging. There is no great honor in wearing these
ashes. In fact, the ashes are a sign of
shame. They show that we know just how
human we are. They show that we know
what sinful people we are. They show
that we know that we are desperately in need of forgiveness from God.
We do this
every year, of course. Did you ever
wonder why? It seems a lot like those old
Jewish rituals, really when people were always having to bring the different
kinds of offerings to the altar so God would forgive them and bless them. You know, as I think about it, it makes me
wonder if we’re just not very good at this whole “repentance” thing. I mean, if last year we truly repented, and
if last year we really thought about who we are how far short of who we ought
to be, why do we need to do it again?
It’s like last year, and the year before that, and all the years before
that, just did not “take” somehow. We seem
to be in pretty much the same place we’ve always been at this time.
That’s kind of
a sad thought, you know? That we’ve
repented and asked for forgiveness so many times—some of us all of our
lives—and yet here we are, having to do it again. It makes me wonder if we’re really serious
about this. Do we really intend, this
year, to change? Or are we just going
through the motions, doing this because it’s what we’re supposed to do as
Christians, but not really intending to change anything about ourselves.
I don’t mean
to be too hard on us. Part of the reason
for this, of course, is simply because of who we are as human beings. We’re weak.
We’re flawed. We’re sinful. And so, since last year, we all have more
things to repent, and more ways in which we’ve fallen short.
But I think
there’s more to it than that. Deep down,
a lot of times, we really don’t want to change.
A lot of times, we’re pretty well satisfied with who we are. We know we’re not perfect, and we don’t claim
to be, but we really don’t want to change much, either. We certainly don’t want to make any radical
changes. We think, “I’m good
enough. I don’t really need to do
anything different.”
I’m not
pointing fingers here, because I’ve certainly done that, too. The thing is, I don’t think God would agree. We’re good enough in some ways, of
course. We’re good enough to receive
God’s love. We’re good enough to have
salvation offered to us if we believe in Jesus as our Savior. We’re good enough in those ways, because
God’s love and salvation don’t depend on how good we are. God’s love does not depend on anything. And God’s salvation only depends on our faith
in Jesus Christ. We don’t have to be
“good enough” for those things. In fact,
we never could be.
But in other
ways, we’re not good enough. If we truly
do have faith in Jesus Christ, if we believe that Jesus is the divine Son of
God, then we need to do what Jesus told us to do. And Jesus told us to do some pretty hard
things. Jesus told us to love our
enemies. Jesus told us to pray for
people who persecute us. Jesus told us
that if we’re struck on one cheek, we should offer the other. We’re supposed to treat others, not the way
they treat us, but they we would like them to treat us. These and all kinds of other things are
things Jesus told us to do that we really don’t want to do. And so, you and I are not “good enough”. And if we’re honest about it, we’re not
really sure we want to be.
And so, here
we are. It’s Ash Wednesday, again. It’s the start of Lent, again. And again, we come to an Ash Wednesday
service. Again, we repent of our
sins. Again, we ask God for forgiveness.
Is this year
going to be any different? Will it
“take” this year? Or will we be right
back here next year in the same position we are now, repenting of our sins and
asking God for forgiveness?
Well, in one
way we know the answer. Unless something
really strange happens, we’ll have an Ash Wednesday service again next
year. And if I’m still the pastor here,
I’ll be here. And I suspect most of you
will be, too.
But that does
not mean that nothing will be different.
We can decide that this year, it will “take”. We can decide that this year, we really will
change. That does not mean we’ll be
perfect. Again, we are weak, sinful,
flawed human beings. But even so, we can
still decide that, when we come here next year, we’ll be different people. We’ll be better people. We’ll be more loving people. We’ll be more caring people. We’ll be people who deserve the title of
“Christians”, because we really will be following Jesus Christ.
So how can we
do that? There’s only one way that I
know of. That’s to pray for God to put
God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our souls, into our minds, and into our
lives. Because the fact is that we
cannot make this kind of change by ourselves.
Even if we’re serious, even if we try really hard, we cannot make this
kind of change by ourselves. The only
way we can make this kind of change is if we allow God to come into us and
change us.
And we do have
to allow it. God could force us to
change, because God is all-powerful. But
God does not do that. God waits to be
invited. God waits to be asked. So, the only way we can change is if we ask
God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, to come into our hearts, into our souls,
into our minds, and into our lives.
So that’s our
challenge. It’s our challenge for
tonight. It’s our challenge for
tomorrow. It’s our challenge for next
week and for next month. It’s our
challenge for the entire period of Lent and beyond.
It’s not going
to be easy. If you’re like me, you’re
going to have a lot of days where it’s hard.
If you’re like me, you’ll have days where you conveniently “forget” to
ask God’s Spirit in. And if you’re like
me, you’ll have other days where you have trouble deciding if you even want to
ask God’s Spirit in.
But you know
what? Lent is forty days long, not
counting Sundays. That gives us about a
month and a half to make this a habit.
If we pray every day, for the entire period of Lent, for God’s Spirit to
come into our hearts, to come into our souls, to come into our minds, to come
into our lives, we’re going to see some changes. We’re going to get used to doing it. And our resistance will break down. It’ll still show up sometimes, but it’ll be
weaker.
Once God’s
Spirit comes in, it’ll be hard for us to tell it to leave, even if once in a
while we think we want to. It’ll be part
of us. And when we gather next year, we
will not be the same people we are tonight.
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