This is the message given in the Ash Wednesday services in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish. The Bible verses used are Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.
I told Wanda recently that I think our bathroom mirror is haunted. Every time I look into it, I see an old man staring back at me.
We all have an image of ourselves, don’t we? And that image is rarely a true one. And I’m not just talking about our appearance here. I’m talking about everything about us--our personality, our work ethic, our intelligence, everything. We have an idea of what all of those things are, but quite often our idea is not very accurate. We may see ourselves as better than we are, or we may see ourselves as worse than we are, but we rarely see ourselves as we really are. The poet Robert Burns wrote over two hundred years ago about what a gift it would be to see ourselves as others see us. It would be an even greater gift, of course, to see ourselves as God see us. But it’s very difficult to do either one.
But Lent is our invitation to try. Lent is a time when we try to strip away our image of ourselves. We try to strip away all the excuses we make for ourselves, all the justifications we make for our behavior. We also try to strip away all the times we beat ourselves up and run ourselves down. We try very hard to see ourselves as we truly are.
It’s hard. If you’ve ever tried to do it, you know it’s hard. Because each one of us is such a unique mixture of good and bad. We have times when we do something incredibly generous, when we give of ourselves with absolutely no thought that we will get anything in return and no thought that we even want anything in return. And we have times when we can think of no one but ourselves, times when it’s all about us and no one else. We have times when we show incredible, unqualified, unconditional love to someone. And we have times when we turn our backs on someone and won’t give them the time of day. We human beings do all of those things and more, every day.
But even if we cannot see ourselves exactly as we are, most of us know that we’re not who we should be. We know, as the Apostle Paul wrote, that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know that, and yet--a lot of times, we don’t do much about it. Oh, we might try to make improvements at the margins. We might choose one or two things to work on. But for the most part, we don’t make substantial changes in our lives. And for the most part, we really don’t want to.
There are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is complacency--we know we’re not perfect, but we don’t think we’re all that bad. Another is laziness--it just seems like too much effort to change. Another is fear--most of us kind of like our lives the way they are, and even if we don’t like them that much we’re used to them. We’ve made peace with them. If we make substantial changes to our lives, if we really decide to go wherever the Lord leads us, well, who knows where we might end up? We may be led to go way out of comfort zones. We might be led to do all kinds of things we never wanted to do, to go places we never wanted to go, and that scares us.
But there’s one other big one, too, and it’s one we don’t talk about as much. It’s procrastination. We know we should change, but--well, we’ll get to that later. We have plenty of time. It’s been said that the biggest lie Satan tells us is that we have plenty of time to get right with God. We’ll do it, yes we will, but--we don’t have to do it right now. There’s no hurry. We’ll get around to it.
And maybe we do have time. But there’s no guarantee of that. The prophet Joel, in our reading for tonight, tells us, “Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand—a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains, a large and mighty army comes, such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come.”
Joel says we don’t have time. He says the day of the Lord is close at hand, and it’s going to be a pretty bad day. But we hear that, and we think, well, he predicted that thousands of years ago. And lots and lots of people have predicted the second coming of Christ, and it has not happened. It’s not something I need to worry about.
Well, maybe not. I don’t truly expect Jesus to come back today or tomorrow. But a couple of things about that. One is that Jesus said he’s going to come back at a time we don’t expect. So just because we don’t expect him to come back right now does not mean that he won’t. It might be many, many years in the future, or it might be tonight. We simply don’t know.
But the other thing is that, even if Jesus does not come back for a long time, the time is going to come when we will go to Him. And that day can come at any time. We tend to assume, when we go to bed, that we’re going to wake up tomorrow, but we don’t actually know that we will. We think we have plenty of time, but we might not. And at some point, we definitely will not. It will be too late.
The time to repent of our sins is now. The time to ask God for forgiveness is now. The time to make changes in our lives is now. Before it’s too late. Joel quotes God as saying, “Even now, return to me with all your heart.” Joel goes on to say, “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.”
And then, Joel says this. And to me, this is the key to the whole thing. If we return to God, if we repent and ask for forgiveness, Joel says, “Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing.”
We sometimes take God’s forgiveness for granted. We think that if we ask God for forgiveness, God has to give it to us. And here’s the thing about that. God is a very forgiving God. If we ask for forgiveness sincerely and with a desire to change, God will forgive us. But knowing that, we can sometimes start to feel as if God’s forgiveness is automatic, that God owes it to us to forgive us.
Joel does not treat it that way at all. Joel tells us to repent, to ask for forgiveness, to return to God. But Joel does not tell us what the result will be. Joel says, “Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing.”
Who knows what God will do? God may forgive. God may leave behind a blessing. Or God may not. It’s up to God.
Now again, I do believe that when we ask for forgiveness sincerely and with a desire to change, God will forgive us. The point is, though, that you and I cannot manipulate God. And we should not approach God in that way.
When we go to God, when we repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness, that should not be done with the desire to get God to do certain things or to act in a certain way. We repent and ask for forgiveness because we have sinned against God. We repent and ask for forgiveness because all of us have, at one time or another, treated the holy and perfect God shamefully. We repent and ask God for forgiveness because God deserves our repentance. God deserves an apology from us, and more than an apology. God deserves our changed behavior, so that we start treating God with the love and respect God deserves. We repent and ask for forgiveness because that is the right thing for us to do.
God owes us nothing. We owe God everything. Our very existence is dependent on God. Without God, we would be nothing. Without God, we would not even be.
So as we enter Lent, let’s take that good, hard look at ourselves. Let’s do what we can to put away the image we have of ourselves, whether it’s good or bad. Instead, let’s try to see ourselves as we truly are, the good and the bad. Let’s resolve to make the important, substantial changes we need to make in our lives. Let’s not put it off until some unknown date in the future. Let’s do it now. Today.
And there’s one more thing we need to do today. We need to ask God to help us do this. Because that’s the only way it’s really going to happen--with God’s help. If we try to do it on our own, will end up, at best, just making small improvements at the margins. If we really want to change our lives, we need God to take control of our lives. That means you and I need to give up control of our lives, and turn that control over to God.
It’s not easy. But it’s what we need to do. And the time to do it is now. Because the day of the Lord is coming.
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