Good Morning Friends,
Ashes were used in Old Testament times to symbolize mourning, mortality, and penance. People like Job in the Old Testament wore sackcloth and ashes to proclaim their desire to repent. But ashes are not just an outward sign. Ashes are to symbolize what is going on in the inside. The prophet Joel tells us that we are to return to God with our whole hearts, to return to him with prayers and weeping and fasting. But today we are not to tear apart our outer garments. We are to truly have an interior change and repentance of heart. As we begin the journey of Lent it is a good time to get in touch with the Holy Spirit, for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is salvation, security, growth, and service. From the ashes of the palm crosses we are marked in the cycle of birth, life, death, and resurrection, but also with the gift at Pentecost. In the reality of our need of repentance…in the reality of our freedom, in the Spirit we draw closer to God to discover a comfortable sense of uncertainty as we realize we do not have answers but still seek to put the puzzle together. So today on this day of salvation we ask, Will Our Repentant Hearts Find Beauty In The Burnt Palms This Ash Wednesday?
Scripture: Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 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; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'” Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people.
Joel 2:12-18 (NRSV)
So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 (NRSV)
“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 (NRSV)
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51: 3-17 (NRSV)
Message: Once again Ash Wednesday inaugurates the season of self-examination and self-denial, we call Lent. But I am not sure everyone finds beauty in the smudges on foreheads that start off the season. Lent gets its name from an Old English word referring to the longer period of daylight in the transition from late winter to early spring. Sounds a bit pagan. Lent is not referred to in the Bible specifically. Martin Luther was not a fan of the celebration and perhaps less that of Fat Tuesday as it has evolved. But that does not mean that God will not use this time to help us to better face the challenges of life. It has a way of leveling the playing field and humbling us a bit. Six years ago, my mother died on Ash Wednesday. And as I am writing this reflection, I am remembering my mother is in her last hours of this earthly life. It was a day where that messy smudge in the shape of a cross was on so many people’s foreheads and it all further
reminds me even now of just how fragile our lives are in this fragile world…ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But I am also remembering my younger brother who died on the eve of this year, for it is also a season that reminds us of the desire to return home… return to the source of abundant life to the family of God. In a sober consideration of our own mortality, we face temptations along with Christ that would detour us from living in the newness of life in our earthly experience. But Lent invites the Spirit to breathe life more fully into our lives that are nothing but dust and ashes without that life-giving Spirit. The whole idea of it forces us to shift our hearts from self to God. In our gospel for Ash Wednesday Jesus focuses on self-examination. In today’s scripture Jesus does not ask us to quibble about petty flaws. He asks us to take on the big one, the ever-present one, the invasive and pernicious one…Pride.
And So, with all this in mind I think that this Ash Wednesday is a good day to be marked with the sign of our faith…to be sealed in the promise of the Holy Spirit. It is a good day to know we will die, but also a good day to know our souls will live on in Christ. Friends, the Lenten season proclaims the reason for a living hope born out of the ashes. It is a journey to the cross that asks us to pick up our own cross without being affirmed for doing so. So how we approach Lent has a lot to do with our maturity and how we extend our love to others. It is a time to cultivate our faith even as our Florida gardens grow in the moisture of recent rains and as the days grow longer the promise of more light.
Pray we do not have a shallow faith but roots that go deep. Pray we do not persist in our pride. Pray that we help lift the needy out of the ash heaps. Pray that the Spirit of the LORD be upon us, calling us out and empowering us to grow and serve. Pray that we comfort those who morn with the oil of joy. Pray we are never indifferent to another’s suffering. Pray this Ash Wednesday that the Holy Spirit makes God real to us. Pray we experience the freedom of the Holy Spirit. Pray we experience the Holy Spirit as a Wonderful Counselor that brings us to Christ. Pray we experience the guarantee of the Holy Spirit that makes us secure with God. Pray this Ash Wednesday that we become free to move forward spiritually. Pray that somehow out of the ashes of our past would come something of beauty that would not betray those who have die but give flight to our life in Christ together.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 