Ash Wednesday + Jonah 3:1-10 + March 1, 2017
Order of the Confessional Service - Pg. 46
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 20
Introit
I WILL - ||
cry out | to | God | Most - | High,
*
To
God who performs | all - | things - | for |
me.
|| And in the shadow of Your
wings I will | make | my | re- - |
fuge, *
Until these calami-
| ties - | have - | passed | by. (Psalm 57:2, 1b)
||
Be merciful to me, O God, be mer- | ci- | ful | to - | me! *
For my | soul - | trusts - | in |
You;
|| And
in the shadow of Your wings I will | make | my | re- - | fuge, *
Until these calami- | ties - | have - | passed | by.
||
I will cry out | to | God | Most - |
High, *
To God who performs | all - | things - | for | me.
||
He shall send from heav- | en | and | save
- | me; *
God shall send forth His mer- | cy - | and - | His | truth. (Psalm 57:1–3)
Almighty and Everlasting God, our Father, Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent, create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with the Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Beginning of Lent
O Gracious God, Who retainest not Thine anger forever, but delightest in mercy and pardonest iniquity, Who wouldst be gracious to Thy people rather than pour out Thy wrath upon sinners, we beseech Thee, forgive us all our sins, and enable us by Thy Holy Spirit to go and sin no more; for the sake of the bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.Amen.
Readings
Jonah 3:1-10
Joel 2:12-19
Matthew 6:16-21
Sermon
Grace
and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) Ash
Wednesday without ashes seems a little odd, like it defeats the purpose of the
day so that we might as well just call it “Wednesday.” There is a reason
though. Two actually. We have not
imposed ashes on our foreheads for a few years now because of the irony of Ash Wednesday.
Rubbing ashes on one’s forehead is a visible sign that tells everyone you’re penitent,
humble, and contrite over your sins. But in the Gospel lesson appointed for
this day Jesus chides the Pharisees who “disfigure
their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting” (Matthew 6:16).
Christ doesn’t want His disciples parading around their piety. Your repentance
is for God and no one else. It’s not meant to be a matter of showmanship for
all the world to see. Instead Jesus says, “But
you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not
appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and
your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:17-18). I’ve
always thought it ironic that on the day in which Jesus tells us not to
disfigure our faces, especially so as to be seen by men, the church goes about
putting a temporary disfigurement on the forehead of the saints. And although
no one accepts the ashes with the thought
of recognition and being seen, the temptation is ever-present to quietly judge
everyone else if they don’t have ashes on their heads, as it the wearing of
ashes were commanded by God or that they make someone a better, more pious
Christian. That’s getting in the territory of the Pharisees, doing man-made
works of piety so that others can see those works.
2) The
second reason is the purpose of the ashes. The purpose of putting ashes on the
foreheads of the saints is to remind them of their sin and their mortality,
both of which the world around us refuses to admit. We are commanded to repent.
The Law condemns us in our sins and when we think we have no sins left the Law
condemns us as sinners. It shows us that not only is the fruit bad, but the
tree itself is diseased and dead. This messages is necessary. All the prophets
preached repentance. John the Baptist preached repentance. Christ Himself
preached repentance throughout His ministry. At Christ’s command, so did His
apostles. But we are not stop with repentance or even make it the main event.
Repentance isn’t the end. If we come here to sorrow over our sins and lament
them, then go home, we’ve accomplished nothing. If we walk out of this
sanctuary and the lasting mark left on us is the reminder of our mortality and
our sinfulness, then we’ve missed the point and gotten it only half right. And
something half right is still wrong. Repentance is only the first thing God
wants to give us on this first day of Lent. He commands repentance so that He
can then give us forgiveness. Or as Dr. Luther teaches us in the Small
Catechism: “Confession embraces two
parts: the one is, that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution,
or forgiveness, from the pastor, as from God Himself, and in no wise doubt, but
firmly believe, that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven.”
3) We
don’t want to forget the second part. The second part is why we come
here as often as we do. The second part is the part that gives us joy and
gladdens the heart. The Lord says in Joel 2:13 that “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and
He relents from doing harm.” He commands repentance so that He may forgive
sinners. Consider how we address the Lord in the Collect for Ash Wednesday. “Almighty and Everlasting God, our Father,
Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all who are
penitent.” Consider how we address the Lord in the Collect for the
Beginning of Lent. We pray “O Gracious God, Who retainest not Thine
anger forever, but delightest in mercy and pardonest iniquity, who wouldst be
gracious to Thy people rather than pour out Thy wrath upon sinners.” God
desires to forgive. That is why He condemns sin. He wants to give sinners joy
and gladness. That is why He strikes sinners with terror through His Law. The
Lord desires to give life. That is why He kills our sinful flesh with the
command to repent. That is all the repentance is, sorrow over one’s sin and the
desire to leave it behind and amend one’s life. When we repent, in fact, as
often as we repent, our Lord pours out grace and mercy on us by freely
forgiving us all our sins for Christ’s sake.
4) Consider
today’s first reading from the prophet Jonah. The Ninevites prove to be an
incredible example of precisely what God desires to do with sinners. Jonah
walks a day’s journey into the ancient metropolis. To cross the entire city
would take three days. Archeology shows us that the city’s circumference was 60
miles, so Jonah walked roughly 20 miles into the city and cried out, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown!” Through the preaching of His prophet, the Lord condemns the
mighty Assyrian city. And while we might expect such a message to be met with
silence or ridicule or even persecution, the Ninevites do something Jonah doesn’t
expect. They hear the Word with an honest heart. The Lord threatened them with
death, but not only death. The Lord threatened their great city, their
metropolitan culture, their booming economy, in other words, civilization as
they knew it. “Yet forty days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown!” From this message it seems as if the only
thing the Lord was interested in was smiting sinners. From this message it
might appear that the only thing the Lord is about is the first part, the
repentance part, the part that demands sorrow over sin. The prophet writes “so the people of Nineveh believed God.”
They took God at His Word. They agreed with His verdict that they were decadent
and detestable sinners. They believed that He would do what He had threatened
to do. But in that stern message of Law the Ninevites hear something else as
well.
5) They
believe the Word and this causes them to repent of their sins. They show the
standard outward signs of repentance. A fast is proclaimed. All the citizens
don sackcloth, “from the greatest to the
least of them.” This news spreads like wildfire, so much so that it reaches
the King, who repents Himself! “He arose
from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat
in ashes.” He humbles Himself, then He commands His subjects humble
themselves according to the customs of the day. No one gets food or water.
Fasting when you are penitent is how you feel God’s anger in a very physical
way. This was not just for the people but for the animals too. Animals can’t
repent because they don’t have rational souls. But even the livestock of
Nineveh taste God’s anger. Soon the great city of Nineveh is filled with the
sounds of wailing, both man and beast’s cries for mercy filling the air. The
sackcloth, ashes, and fasting are simply external signs of the reality of their
hearts, for the King commands, “Yes, let
everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.”
Let everyone turn. Let everyone repent. Let everyone sorrow over their deeds
and amend their lives. All this happened because of the simple preaching of
Jonah. “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall
be overthrown!”
6) The
king of Nineveh understands something about the Lord. He understands that
repentance is never an end unto itself. He repents, and all Nineveh with him,
so that God might change His verdict and show mercy. “Who can tell,” he says, “if
God will turn and relent and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may
not perish?” The King of Nineveh, a pagan, shows us the goal of repentance,
the goal of sackcloth and ashes and wailing and lamenting. The goal of
repentance is mercy. “Confession has two parts.” Repentance and faith in the
promise of the Gospel, faith that God will forgive the sins of all who repent
because He loves all that He has made and does not desire the death of sinners
but that sinners repent and live. “Then
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented
from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do
it.” God saw their works, not their sackcloth and ashes. He saw their work
of turning away from evil. He saw their repentance and their sorrow over their
sin. And because of that He forgave them and relented. His threat was to
destroy the mighty city and all in it. But through repentance and faith they
were spared. The Lord changed His mind and cancelled the verdict against them,
forgiving their sins and not imputing their sins to them. They sought mercy and
that is precisely what they found in the true God.
7) So
even now, God “commands all men
everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30), but not only so that they sorrow over
their sins, but that they receive the absolution which Christ earned for all
men by His death upon the cross. God the Father shows mercy to everyone who confesses
their sins and flee to the throne of grace, Jesus Christ, and pleads His
merits, His perfect life, and His sacrificial death as the Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world. He wants you to repent and acknowledge your
sins of thought, word, and deed. He wants you to see that its not only your
actions but who you are, not just that you sin but that you are a sinner. But
He wants to show you this so that He can cleanse you and absolve you and remove
your sin. We could impose ashes upon ourselves as an outward sign of our
repentance. It’s a free thing, a man-made custom of the church. But I’d much
rather have you walk out of here thinking about the absolution rather than your
ashes. God is more interested in what’s going on in your head than what’s put
on your forehead. He desires repentance and faith in His absolving Word, spoken
by the pastor as if from God himself, because it is God’s Word, as Jesus says, “He who hears you hears me,” (Luke
10:16) and “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them” (John 20:23). Your Lord does not
want you to leave this place with a sour face or a gloomy disposition. He wants
His Christians to be joyful, glad, and cheerful, rejoicing that their sins are
forgiven and their guilt is removed. He wants you to repent today and every
day, so that He may forgive you today and every day, for He “delightest in
mercy and pardonest iniquity,” He “wouldst be gracious rather than pour out
wrath.” Look to the Ninevites. If they found mercy so will we, for we have the promise
of Christ. Amen.
May the peace of God which passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.