Ash Wednesday
Dear friends in Christ. Today begins the holy and penitential season of Lent as we prepare ourselves to remember our Lord’s suffering and death and then to celebrate the most holy day of our calendar, Easter, the day of Jesus’ resurrection and the defeat of our enemies—sin, death, devil and hell—and our reconciliation and peace with God. Why is there Easter? Because Jesus rose from the dead. Why did Jesus die? Because He laid down His life on the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of us all? Why did Jesus rise from the dead? Because He is the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world and the Father accepted His sacrifice for us. How is He the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world? Because He lived a holy life, completely without sin for us and bore the wrath and punishment of God for all of our sins. Why Christ, why His suffering and death, and ultimately Easter? Because in one word: sin. Here is the focus/ theme of Lent: our sin but Jesus’ suffering and death—as our Substitute—for our sin.
It’s not that Christians have a morbid fixation on sin. It’s just the simple reality of life—we are sinners. But the plot/ ploy of the devil is to try to get us to forget about our sin or to think that it is no big deal. If he can do that, then he can easily get us to turn away from Jesus. And if we turn away from Jesus, then there is and can be no help for us: we are not reconciled to God; heaven is shut to us; and we will be eternally, soul and body, in the torments of hell. That’s why remembering that we are sinners is so vital. And to this end, the Church Year gives us pause each year especially to focus in on our sin and that Jesus is our Savior from that sin and leads us all the more to look to Jesus and long for the salvation He brings.
Our text today also helps us to understand the “why” of Ash Wednesday and Lent. It comes at a time of Israelite history that was dark; the wicked king, Ahaz, had just ruled. Scripture [2 Chr. 28.22-25] reports that King Ahaz became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord…He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus…[and] he gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every single city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of His fathers. But also a new light and hope was beginning to shine. It was a time in which Ahaz’s son began to reign—Hezekiah, a good and godly king. Of him, Scripture says: he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And what is the first thing he does? Our text: In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. The very doors his father had closed Hezekiah opened and strengthened them once again for everyday use.
The sin of idolatry had come in like a flood and inundated the country under the wicked king, Ahaz. Here is a good reminder to us of why Ash Wednesday and Lent. It is a special time of year that we, in particular, take extra time to examine our hearts and lives in the mirror and light of God’s holy law. Why? Because we, too, can become inundated by sin that we may not even recognize as sin or that we have hardened ourselves toward. But now comes Ash Wednesday and Lent—and its call to take a long hard look at look at our lives. And what will we often find? That sin has, perhaps imperceptibly, taken root in our hearts and lives. My sin will be different than yours, but we all have sin that so easily creeps into our lives. To deny that is to deny our sinfulness, our sinful nature that wants to go against the will of the Lord, that wants to serve self and its master—the devil.
Notice here, though, Hezekiah’s zeal: In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. May this be our zeal this Lent: to make recognizing our sin our first order of business. Ash Wednesday and Lent is the perfect time to stop, pause and look at our lives and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, try to nip that sin in the bud. Remember what it said about wicked King Ahaz: King Ahaz became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord. It wasn’t overnight. It was a deep but gradual spiritual slide—until finally it was too late and he even forbade worship of the true God.
And what is worse, is that it wasn’t just King Ahaz, but King Hezekiah here says in our text, it was all the people.
For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs. They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel.
All around was sin and idolatry—to be sure it came from the top down—but the people saw it, tolerated it, accepted it and embraced it. Everybody’s doing it! We are not immune from becoming like everyone else in sin. Again, the call of Ash Wednesday and Lent: renewed and particular self-examination in light of God’s holy law.
Taking our cue from good King Hezekiah, start now, first thing! Let Ash Wednesday and Lent be our renewed time for self-examination so that we recognize the seriousness of the sin around us, of our own sin, and that sin can creep into our lives so easily and we can soon begin a deep spiritual slide.
As we once again use the blessed season of Lent as a time to examine our heart and life, we then recognize our spiritual problem. By the time of Hezekiah, the people had completely turned away from the Lord, even to the point of shutting down the temple. Their deep spiritual problem was that they turned from living in the Lord’s presence and seeking Him in the temple.
But as we use the season of Lent as a time of self-examination and penitence we will indeed see that “Yes, I am a sinner!” It does us well to recognize that we are sinners because then we see our need for a Savior and that we cannot on our own, from our side, “get right with God.” As we honestly examine our hearts and lives all that we will see is how far we are from the absolute perfection God demands of us if we are to live eternally with Him in heaven, soul and body; we will see that there is no hope left for us if we hope to make up to Him for all our sins with all our supposed good works—because any good we do is only something we should have done anyway, so it’s no feather in our cap. We will see the meaning of Ash Wednesday’s ashes—death [Gn 3.19]: For you are dust and to dust you shall return.
The simple recognition that “I am a sinner” which any right and honest use of Ash Wednesday and Lent will bring to the fore, brings us to the main purpose/ reason of Ash Wednesday and Lent—to drive us to Jesus, to the arms of our loving Savior from sin. Why would we run to our Savior from sin if we didn’t think we needed Him, if we didn’t think we were sinners, if we didn’t think that our sins earn us nothing but God’s wrath and damnation? The more seriously we take our sin—and that’s a blessed purpose of Lent—the more we will long and yearn for and welcome Jesus and His holy life, innocent suffering and death for us.
2. But again, isn’t Ash Wednesday and Lent’s theme all “doom and gloom”? We are sinners who with our sinful nature all we can do is sin, who are surrounded by sin and easily fall prey to the devil’s temptations, who because of sin only earn God’s wrath and condemnation; we cannot save ourselves but need a Savior from sin. Yes, it would be all doom and gloom if Lent was only about recognizing our sin and what our sin earns us. But it isn’t! The other theme of Lent is the grace of God. God doesn’t just come to us in His holy word of Law and condemn us.
What did He do in Hezekiah’s day when the people had been unfaithful and…done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. [And had] forsaken him and … turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs. [And had] also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel? Did He give them what they rightly deserved for their sin and rebellion? No! He showed them grace and raised up and gave them godly King Hezekiah. Through Hezekiah the Lord showed mercy and led the people back to Him. This is the way the Lord works, as the blessed Apostle tells us [Rm 5.20]: But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.
The Lord’s grace! That’s why there can even be an Ash Wednesday and a Lent. What good would it do us if we indeed recognized our sin, recognized we are sinners, recognize that we cannot save ourselves, recognize For you are dust and to dust you shall return, but there was no grace of God? What would be the point? But the very strength and desire to hold up our lives, thoughts, words and deeds to the light of God’s holy Law comes from God’s grace. By faith we know Him to be a gracious God who will forgive us our sins as we run to Him, to the outstretched nail pierced hands of Jesus. The purpose of Lent with all its self-examinations and rigors is all led and motivated by the grace of God. There—in the grace of God—is our comfort. What does Hezekiah do in our text? Yes, he recognizes the sin of the people and recognizes that they are rightly punished for their sin, but then says: Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger may turn away from us. Hezekiah finds his comfort in God’s covenant of grace, a covenant founded on God’s grace and the promise of the Savior.
The season of Lent ends with Jesus’ suffering, death and burial. There we see the reason why we can recognize our sin and sorrow over it—and not end up in despair. Jesus, true God who became also true man and obeyed God’s law for us, on the cross bore the all of God’s wrath and punishment over our sin. What a great grace of God toward us sinners and how we rejoice when we hear the words of St. John [1 Jn 1.9]: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lent—the time especially to confess sin; but the grace of God? He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness—faithful to His word and promise to forgive us our sin for Jesus’ sake. Luther once remarked that God does not thunder in wrath to “Perpetuate the fear of those who recognize their sin and are frightened.” The point? Recognize your sin, sorrow over your sin, yes!, but then, like Hezekiah, run right away to the grace of God to you in Christ Jesus. Run to that covenant God made with you in holy baptism to wash away your sins, to give you the righteousness of Christ, to connect you with Jesus and His death and resurrection, to bring you into His holy family. Each day confess your sins and then remember your baptism: grab ahold once again of the forgiveness of sins and clothe yourself with Jesus’ perfect righteousness. Come to the Holy Supper of our Lord where with the bread and wine He gives you His very body and blood for the forgiveness of your sin. Our Lord is very rich in grace and His Church, His holy word and Sacraments, are at the center. It was no fluke that the first thing Hezekiah did was to re-open the temple so that the word may be heard and the sacrifices, which pointed the people forward to Jesus’ once for all perfect sacrifice, would again be made and the people pointed to God’s grace.
God’s grace is ultimately the reason why there is an Ash Wednesday and a Lent. And that grace is never exhausted. As many sins as we find in us there is more than enough of God’s grace for us. That strengthens us to find and root out that sin, so that by His Holy Spirit in us we are led into lives of greater piety. INJ Amen