Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

February 22, 2023

Text: Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

            The imposition of ashes on the forehead is not a practicing of righteousness before others, not any more than others observing you as you put your envelope in the offering plate, or bow your head and fold your hands for prayers.  Some of my colleagues worry that ashes on the forehead is a violation of our Holy Gospel this evening, as though we’re disfiguring our faces so everyone will know we’re fasting.  Well… I agree with them.  If they are tempted to wear ashes for that purpose, they should not wear them, and the same goes for you.  In my experience, though, most Lutherans are thankful the Ash Wednesday service is in the evening so they can go straight from Church to the bathroom sink and wash away the smudge before anyone else is the wiser.  If anything, I really envy the rare bird who is unafraid to wear the ashen cross to work or school.  In our day, this is surely not a mark of pride.  Actually, it makes the person a target.

            The ashen cross is not a pious fashion accessory.  It is, rather a visible Christian confession.  The ashes proclaim that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  We are mortal.  We will die.  Because we are sinners, and we sin.  The ashes are a confession of sin.  Why ashes?  Ashes are the remnants of what is destroyed by fire.  Cities leveled, like Sodom and Gomorrah, or burned out Jerusalem, led into captivity for her faithlessness and idolatry.  Or the ashes left over from the burnt offering of atonement for sin.  That is why the ashes are smeared in the shape of the cross.  For on the altar of the cross, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was roasted in the fire of God’s wrath over our sin, a whole burnt offering, an acceptable sacrifice, to make atonement for the sins of the world.  The cross is a confession of faith.  Though we are dust, and on account of our sins, to dust shall be justly returned, we will not suffer eternal destruction in the fire of God’s wrath.  That wrath has been spent on Jesus.  And He will raise us up out of the dust and ashes of death.  For the crucified Lamb of God, who takes away our sins, is risen from the dead. 

            So, wear your ashen cross like you’d wear a crucifix or a cross necklace.  Not as a display to elicit the praises of others, but as a confession of who you are apart from Christ, a lost and condemned sinner, and what Christ has done about it in His suffering and death and resurrection, and therefore who you are now in Christ, a repentant and redeemed sinner, receiving the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works or acts of piety.  That is what the ashen cross is all about. 

            But what about what Jesus says in our Holy Gospel?  “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them” (Matt. 6:1; ESV).  The issue is not that other people see.  It is that you do them so that other people see… and praise you.  So that they will say, “Oh, what a great and pious Christian he is.  Oh, to have her heart of service and Christian dedication.”  Now, there are people we say such things about.  We should have Christian role-models we admire and emulate.  But to be such a Christian role-model, the person must not do what he or she does for the sake of admiration, or to bring any glory or attention to the self, but to give all glory to God, and to love and serve the neighbor.  To avoid the temptation to exalt oneself in the eyes of others, we should sound no trumpets.  We should not let the left hand know what the right is doing.  We should go into our room and shut our door to pour out our petitions before God.  We should anoint our heads, and yes, wash our faces in the bathroom sink tonight, that our Father may see our fasting in secret, and so our Father who sees in secret will grant us a reward.

            But wait a minute… Fasting?  Reward?  Well, yes.  But don’t blame me.  Jesus is the One who says it.

            Lutherans aren’t very good at fasting, but this is one we may want to re-think, because, to my knowledge, every other Bible-believing Church encourages the practice.  More importantly, the Bible does, and in our Holy Gospel tonight, Jesus doesn’t say “If you fast,” but “when you fast” (v. 16).  It’s a given that you will.  Why?  Because here we find ourselves in the wilderness of this world, in Babylonian exile, in this fallen sack of flesh.  And our sins are many, and our need for God’s mercy and help is great.  And though Jesus is with us always, as He promises, particularly in His Word and Sacraments, we can’t see Him with our eyes.  Fasting is a physical act of lament, of prayer and pleading.  And it is an exercise in self-discipline, a mortification of the flesh, and a preparation for times of deprivation and persecution which are likely to come to us as a result of our Christian faith, just because we bear the mark of the holy cross.  The prophets all fasted.  Daniel and the three young men ate only vegetables while in exile in Babylon.  Esther bid her people to fast for her as she went into the king, on pain of death, to plead for the lives of the Jews.  Jesus fasted.  The Church of the New Testament fasted.  All the Church fathers, and the Church though the ages, fasted.  So this is not some strange thing we’re talking about here.  It’s just strange to Lutherans.  I confess, I’m not very good at it.  But here it is in our Scripture readings.  “‘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’” (Joel 2:12-13).   

            Now, this is not a command in the sense that you must express your repentance in just this way.  This is a matter of Christian freedom, to do or not to do, so, if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.  But Lutherans use this as an excuse to never do it.  So at least think about it as a salutary possibility.  Now, everyone’s fast will look different.  You design it for yourself.  And if you have to break it, you have to break it.  It is no sin.  In fact, not everyone should fast.  Pregnant and nursing mothers should not fast.  Diabetics should stay on their regimen.  The elderly and sick should follow the doctor’s orders.  But for most of us, living as we are in a time of unprecedented wealth and plenty, overindulgence, and instant gratification, a little fasting wouldn’t kill us.  There is a time for everything.  There is a time for fasting, and a time for feasting.  This, beloved, is the time of Lent.  The fast.  Easter is coming.  And on that day, we should not fast.  We should feast!  There is great wisdom in ordering our lives according to the seasons of the Church. 

            The point is self-discipline, denying the flesh satisfaction of its impulses and desires, and so crucifying the sinful nature.  Even many Lutherans decide to “give something up for Lent,” which is a form of fasting, so… good.  Just as important as giving something up, and possibly more beneficial, may be to take something up.  Like the things Jesus says in our Gospel.  Give to the needy.  Maybe give a little extra money to provide for the needs of your neighbors this Lent.  Pray.  When Jesus tells you to go into your room and shut the door, He isn’t talking about the public prayers in the Divine Service, and He certainly isn’t forbidding you from praying with a family member or friend.  But He is talking about the ritual habit of personal prayers.  Which means, first of all, hearing what God has to say in His Word, and then responding with your petitions and praise.  Maybe you add more time for this in your daily routine this Lent.  More Scripture.  More prayer.  Fasting can go right along with all of this.  What you would have spent eating out, you can use to feed someone else.  The time you would have spent eating, you can spend praying.  It’s not a command.  You don’t have to do it.  But you may do it.  These are just possibilities, suggestions, to be taken or not.

            But here’s the thing, and your Lutheran instincts are going to kick against this, but they shouldn’t, because this is the Bible, and therefore this is Lutheranism: Your Father will reward it.  That’s what Jesus says.  Now, He doesn’t mean you are earning eternal life or merit or worthiness before God by doing these things.  Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.  But what is the reward?  The reward is, first of all, in the thing itself.  The more you give away wealth, the freer you are of the idol of wealth.  The more you pray and read Scripture, the deeper is your relationship with the one true God.  We’re simply talking about repentance and faith here.  And fasting?  The reward is greater freedom from the tyranny of fleshly desire.  And greater joy when we come to the time of feasting.  The reward is bodily participation in your prayer and lament, and the realization that true fulfillment comes not from food… or satisfaction of any other fleshly desire… but from God alone.  As Jesus Himself will say to us on Sunday: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). 

            See, the point of all of this is, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:19-21).  Don’t set your heart on wealth, or the accolades of others, or food, or sex, or money, or power.  Or anything else in this fallen world, which can be taken from you in a moment.  Set your heart on God.  Set your heart on Jesus.  He is the Treasure.  He is the Reward.  Not by merit.  But by grace.  By His grace.

            For He set His heart on you, and so made you His treasure.  He gave up everything, the wealth of divine glory, to provide for your needs and purchase you to be His own.  He prayed to His Father in solitude and bloody sweat that, if it be His Father’s will, He drink the cup of God’s wrath down to the very dregs, to save you.  And this Sunday we will hear of His wilderness fast.  40 days and 40 nights of hunger and weakness, to go toe to toe with the devil in your place, and on your behalf, to free you from the tyranny of the devil’s temptation.  And He won.  Jesus won.  By His suffering and cross.  He won you to be His own.

            And so you are marked with His cross.  Ashes… but His cross.  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  But remember, Christ is risen.  And He will raise you from the dust when He returns.  In the meantime, a little food to sustain you for the fast.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.