03/06/19
Sidney UMC – Ash Weds. Sermon
Sermon Title: “Why we wear ashes tonight”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 51:1-17
New Testament
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Gospel Lesson:
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Welcome again my friends, my brothers and sisters in
Christ, on this the first day of this season of Holy Lent. This day that the church
has come to call “Ash Wednesday”. So despite what the camel in the GEICO
commercials says, today is “Ash Wednesday”. I guess it is also “Hump Day,” but
it is also “Ash Wednesday”! So what is Ash Wednesday? Why do we have this day
in the Christian calendar?
According to one source that I researched, Ash Wednesday
is:
“A Christian holy day of prayer, fasting,
and repentance. It is preceded by Shrove
Tuesday and falls on the first day of Lent, the six weeks of
penitence before Easter. Ash Wednesday is observed by many Christians,
including Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Old Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman
Catholics, and some Baptists”.
“Ash
Wednesday derives its name from the placing of repentance ashes on the
foreheads of participants to either the words "Repent, and believe in the
Gospel" or the dictum "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you
shall return." The ashes may be prepared by burning palm leaves from
the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations”.
“Because
it is the first day of Lent, many Christians, on Ash Wednesday, often begin
marking a Lenten calendar, praying a Lenten daily
devotional, and abstaining from a luxury that they will not partake
in until Easter Sunday arrives” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday).
I have 40-day Lenten devotional calendars that Sharon
Bassett very nicely sent me that are on the tables in the back of the sanctuary,
if any of you would like to pick one up. On this day then, we are entering into
a 40-day period leading up to Good Friday, and then to Easter Sunday.
So with this definition given, Ash Wednesday has always
been in a way sort of strange to me. I mean, we take burned palms from Palm
Sunday the year before, then we take the burned palm ashes and then we mix these
ashes with some olive oil. Now we don’t stop there! We then smear crosses on people’s
foreheads!
A
little odd one might say! I mean, we come to church every year on the first day
of the 40-day season of Lent to get palm ashes smeared on our foreheads. Noah
was on the water for 40-days, the Jews wandered the wilderness for 40-years, this
Sunday in our gospel reading Jesus is tempted and tried in the wilderness for
40-days, but for the 40-days of Lent, that’s right smeared palm ashes on your
forehead. Awesome!
In
some cultures historically, the church has sprinkled ashes on top of people’s
heads, but in Western culture we like to smear a cross on people’s foreheads,
or sometimes on the hand. I think many cultures are more and more adopting this
method of the imposition of the palm ashes on the forehead though.
In
this being the first day of this the season of Holy Lent, this “Ash Wednesday,”
we are given a 40-day period, minus Sundays, to prepare our hearts, our minds, our
souls, and our bodies, for the death and then the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is a season of holy preparation, reflection, repentance, love and
goodwill, and a season where we can reflect upon our lives and how we live.
I remember in growing up in a mostly Roman Catholic family
that my aunts, grandparents, and others would bemoan every year the tradition
of giving up something for Lent. How many of us have ever given up something
for Lent?
The
idea behind this tradition was that Jesus Christ came to earth to teach us to
love, to heal, to forgive, and to die for us. So in response we should therefore
give up something we like to show our sacrifice and our contrition. More
specifically, we should sacrifice something as Christ has sacrificed for us.
Some Roman Catholic Christians and clergy in Medieval times would flagellate or
whip themselves, or mortify there flesh in other ways, almost as a punishment
for what Christ has done for us. Giving up something for Lent though, I don’t
believe should be to punish or to harm us.
Instead, the idea of giving up something for Lent was
always supposed to be about drawing us closer to God. For example, if we give
up chocolate, let us do it because it draws us closer to God, to Jesus, not
just so that we can be angry and irritable for the next 40-days. Further, in
this season of Holy Lent, we can also give things away. We can love others even
more, and love all people, we can give away things that we don’t need, and we
can give generously.
The ashes that we will receive tonight then, should not be
a mark of shame and guilt therefore, but rather ones of repentance and victory.
We are Christians, we are loved by an amazing and all-encompassing God. We are
forgiven by Jesus Christ, and as such, the ashes that we will receive tonight
remind us of our own brokenness, our own mortality, and our own need for the
grace of Jesus Christ. This my friends, my brothers and sisters, is “Why we
wear ashes tonight”. Holy Lent is about making us more like Jesus Christ, and
living into his image. In Ecclesiastes 3:20 it says:
“All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to
dust again”
(Ecc.
3:20, NRSV).
This is a humbling verse of scripture
that reminds us that only thing eternal is God and His kingdom. As Christians,
we believe that when we die our earthly deaths that we enter into the warm
embrace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. On this earth though, we are
called to live this faith out in radical ways, by teaching, loving, healing, forgiving,
and by pursuing God’s justice. Yet we are all broken, and each and everyone one
of us are sinners. In this season of Holy Lent, and especially on this Ash Wednesday,
the ashes that we will receive tonight should remind us of our frailty, our
humanness, our need for forgiveness, and our need for God’s grace. This is “why
we wear ashes tonight”. So that the world will know that we are broken people,
redeemed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
In our reading this evening from Psalm
51, the Psalmist is asking God to clean, forgive, and to cleanse him of all
unrighteousness (Ps. 51:1-17, NRSV).
In our reading from 2 Corinthians for
tonight, the Apostle Paul encourages us to “be reconciled to God,” and talks
about many have suffered for Christ, yet he is with us. Trust God and put your
faith in Christ.
In our gospel reading for tonight from
the gospel of Matthew, is says once again:
“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”
(Mt.
6:1-4, NRSV).
Jesus says to serve and to love God, not for
praise from others, but to honor and love God. Jesus then once again
continues on and says:
“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” (Mt.
6:5-6, NRSV).
Jesus tell us to
serve and to love God, not for praise from others, but to honor and love God. Jesus
continues on once again and says of fasting as a spiritual disciple that:
“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” (Mt. 6:16-18, NRSV).
Jesus tells us to fast, to serve, and to love God, not for
praise from others, but to honor and love God. Lastly, Jesus says once again:
“Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where
thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and
steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt. 6:19-21, NRSV).
Friends, brothers and sisters, the possessions that we have,
the money that we have, the cars, the homes, the I-phones, all of these are
temporary, but God is eternal. The vast majority of us as people will be
nameless to history, but faithful for eternity. We will be forgotten on this
earth, our possessions and money will perish and fade away, but God is eternal.
We live in a world, and a community that knows so much pain,
so much brokenness, and so much suffering. We “wear ashes tonight,” to let the
world know that we aren’t perfect, but that we are forgiven by a perfect savior
named Jesus Christ. We “Wear ashes tonight,” because we are all on the Lenten
journey to the cross together. Remember though it’s a journey that leads to an
empty tomb. For the life of Christ is one of hope, forgiveness, light, life,
and love.
In this season of Lent, I hope and pray, with God’s help, to
become more loving, more generous, more caring, more giving, and I am also
giving up something for Lent. This year I am giving up pride, as I need to
continue to trust God more, and not myself. I was considering giving up coffee,
but short of a visit from the Angel Gabriel to tell me that this is God’s will,
this will likely never happen!
So friends, brothers and sisters, we “wear ashes tonight,”
because God is good, God is loving, and because in this 40-day season of Lent,
we are preparing for Jesus Christ to die for us. May we be loving, repentant,
caring, merciful, and seeking with God’s help to become more like Jesus Christ in
this season of Lent, and always. This is “why we wear ashes tonight”. Amen.
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