Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

March 5, 2025

Text: Joel 2:12-19; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

            Repentance is both a public and a private exercise.  It is both corporate and individual.  Our Old Testament reading from the Prophet Joel offers an example of public, corporate repentance.  God’s people had sinned.  They had forsaken the LORD.  They had committed idolatry.  They had oppressed the poor.  They had not walked in the way of God’s Commandments.  Now, by the voice and pen of the prophet, God calls them to repent.  To return to the LORD, their God.  Why?  Because He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  He relents over disaster (Joel 2:13).  That Gospel Promise gives confidence to God’s people, that in repenting, in returning (the Hebrew word for repentance means to return), they will find a God who loves them, receives them, and forgives them all their sins. 

So they are to repent, and they are to do so in a very public way.  They are to blow the trumpet, so that everyone knows.  They are to call a solemn assembly, so that everyone participates.  Everyone is to fast.  Everyone is to mourn.  This is to acknowledge that the sin is real, and it is serious.  It puts the nation, and all the individuals in that nation, in mortal peril, physically and spiritually.  It separates the nation, and the individuals in that nation, from their God.  Everyone is to weep.  Everyone is to cry out.  Everyone is to rend, not their garments (although there certainly would have been garment rending), but their hearts.  Even those who are otherwise joyfully celebrating, like the parents of newborns, or the bride and bridegroom on their honeymoon.  That joy is to be interrupted for the sake of this lamentation and repentance.  So also the elders.  Those would be the public authorities.  And the priests, the clergy.  Everyone is to repent.  No one is exempted. 

            And notice the physical, bodily, concrete nature of the repentance.  It’s not just grieving in the heart.  It is given outward expression.  Again, fasting.  Weeping.  Loud corporate lament.  It is not, first, an emotion.  It is, first, an action.  Other cultures were, and are, better at this than our own.  They were certainly better at it than the Lutherans.  They understood that you didn’t have to wait and listen to your inner emotions before you expressed the appropriate outward emotional manifestation.  Rather, they understood that participation in the appropriate outward emotional manifestation influenced the inner disposition of the heart.  You know this if you’ve ever been to a rock concert, or a football game, or anything similar.  When everybody else springs to their feet, whooping it up, cheering, singing along, clapping and jumping up and down, you can get swept up into that, too.  Just doing it gets you into the mood.  Well, the same is true of lament.  That is why your own eyes well up when people are grieving and weeping around you.  This is the reason for public, corporate repentance.  God’s people in Judah were to repent together in a very concrete, visible way.  And in so doing, their inner disposition, their hearts, would catch up to the reality being expressed outwardly.  We have sinned.  And so we are devastated.  But we know the LORD is gracious and merciful.  He is our only hope.

            And so the Church observes Ash Wednesday.  This is our corporate, public, outward exercise of repentance.  Now, we don’t do it to be ostentatious.  We doing it together, as a communal exercise.  We do it as a public confession.  We’ve called, as Joel says, a sacred assembly.  Everyone is to come.  Everyone is to weep and mourn.  Everyone is to cry out to God.  Where have we forsaken Him?  Where have we committed idolatry?  Where have we oppressed our neighbors?  Where have we not walked in the way of God’s Commandments?  Let’s confess it.  Let’s take our sin seriously for the disaster it is, for the mortal peril it brings us.  Let’s rend our hearts.  And return to the LORD, our God. 

            We return because of the Promise.  The Gospel.  The cross.  Notice how the imposition of ashes confesses both realities.  Ashes, because we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).  But in the shape of a cross.  Because Jesus has redeemed us from sin and death by His own death on the cross of Calvary.  Our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  He relents from disaster, because He takes the disaster upon Himself.  By His death, we are delivered from death.  And in His resurrection, we live. 

            So the Christian response to, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is “Amen.”  And then, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Ps. 51:10; ESV).  “Yes, I am dust.  Yes I am dying, because I am a sinner, and I have sinned.  But You have saved me by the blood and death of Your Son, O God.  Now send me Your Holy Spirit, that I may live as Your own child, redeemed, and loved, and loving with Your love overflowing in me.”

            Now, what happens as a result of this public assembly and corporate exercise in repentance, is that you take this with you into the rest of Lent, to be practiced individually and privately.  Secretly even, as Jesus says in our Gospel.  By the way, this is why you don’t have to worry that wearing an ashen cross on your forehead is somehow breaking Jesus’ commandment in our Holy Gospel to practice our piety in secret.  There is a place for both, public and private.  Just as you say private prayers behind closed doors at home, but you also say public prayers with the body of Christ here at Church.  You don’t have to keep it secret from the rest of us, that you’re praying in the Service (see how easily this gets ridiculous?).  The imposition of ashes is the public exercise of repentance.  But you will also, undoubtedly, engage in some form of private, secret Lenten discipline at home.  Hopefully it will include some combination of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, because that is what Jesus assumes His Christians will do in our Holy Gospel.  He doesn’t say, “If you give to the needy… If you pray… and if you fast,” but “when” you do those things.

            And it shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus gives pretty good advice.  Because these three disciplines do not come naturally to our sinful nature.  So the doing of them necessarily means crucifying Old Adam.  Which is to say, repenting.  We said that the Hebrew word for repent means to return.  The Greek New Testament word for repent means to change your mind.  And that is what it takes to give away your wealth to those who need it more, to humble yourself in prayer to God, and to deny your bodily appetites.  And so, a word on each of these. 

            Almsgiving.  Generosity.  To your Church, to further her mission in the world, yes.  That is your tithing.  But also, and especially, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to homeless, etc.  To help your neighbor in need.  Now, in all these things, you are not trying to earn God’s favor, or merit a divine declaration of righteousness.  You already have that in Christ.  He has earned God’s favor for you.  He is your righteousness before God.  But your Father does reward you for almsgiving.  And what is that reward?  Freedom from the idol of mammon.  Freedom from bondage to riches.  The strengthening of your faith to rely on God, rather than money.  And the joy of seeing your neighbor prosper.  There may be other rewards… undoubtedly many, but at least those. 

            Prayer.  First, hearing God in His Word, and then responding with petition, intercession, praise, and thanksgiving.  Your Father promises to hear and answer for Jesus’ sake.  And if that’s not reward enough, what else?  Relationship with God.  You are conversing with Him.  A stronger and stronger reliance upon Him for every need.  Freedom from reliance upon self, or other people, or other things, which is idolatry.  Humility… you can’t do this on your own.  Taking your place as a child in the House of your Father who loves you, and provides for your every need.  And again, so much more, but at least those.

            And finally, fasting.  We’re not very good at this one as Lutherans, but we should give it a try.  Some of you will give up chocolate, or coffee, or something like that, for Lent.  And that can be a good exercise.  But think about this.  What things in this life… even good things (chocolate and coffee are very good things)… what things in this life are you in bondage to?  Addicted to?  What things have claimed an outsized place in your life?  With what things are you in a disordered relationship?  Fast from those things.  Your cell phone, maybe.  Social media.  Maybe you try some literal fasting, as in not eating for certain periods (do that only if you’re healthy enough, but more of us should give it a shot.  I wrote an article on this last year, and I’m happy to forward it to you again if you’d like).  Certainly fast from sinful things, things that cater to your lust or covetousness, or take your attention off of God.  To fast from those things is to return to the LORD your God.  What are the rewards?  Better health.   That is absolutely a thing.  But better spiritual health, because you are changing your mind from a focus on the things that are not God, to focus on God and His Word.  And on prayer.  And on helping your neighbor.  You are reminding your old sinful flesh (as you crucify it again) that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

            Now, do these things in secret.  Let them flow forth from this solemn public assembly, but don’t do them ostentatiously, to show off your piety.  Do them as concrete expressions of your changing mind, turning away from idols to the one true God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; the God who has made you His own in Christ.  Do them as concrete expressions of love for your neighbor, and as a reminder to yourself that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  But dust redeemed.  The cross.  Christ crucified (just look at the crucifix!).  And so, you are dust that shall rise again.  Because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  Fast now, for the Feast is assuredly coming.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.