This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. Midweek services from Ash Wednesday through Maundy Thursday will explore the theme, “Living as Christians.”

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Readings

Joel 2:1–2, 12–17
Psalm 51:1–17
2 Corinthians 5:20b–6:10
Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21

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Prayer

You call us to return to you, Lord God, and to leave behind all that keeps us from giving ourselves fully to serve you. Reach out to us with your Word, so that we may turn to face you and to give you glory; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Message

Lent is a time of preparation,
of getting back to the basics.
We use this season—
40 days not including Sundays—
to remember our Lord’s sacrifice for us,
to recall his gifts of grace,
to renew our commitment to turn from our sin,
to restore our desire to serve him.

Tonight, we begin at the beginning:
we now bear the sign of our Lord’s cross,
the mark of his victory over sin, death, and the devil,
and the reminder to us,
that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

We have confessed our sins,
the ways we have fallen short
of God’s will for our lives,
by what we have done, thought, and felt,
and by what we have left undone, uncontemplated, and unheeded.

We have spoken of these sins,
in our hearts,
sharing them with God,
and we have asked him to forgive us.

This is a time for us to be honest,
to look at ourselves squarely and clearly
in the mirror of God’s law
and to see, without blinking,
that “we are in bondage to sin,
and cannot free ourselves.”

Some might accuse us of being too negative
with all of this talk about sin and evil.
Maybe we should accentuate the positive,
look on the bright side,
and just help people tweak their lives around the edges.

But that’s not the heart of our faith.
God our Father sent his Son to redeem the world.
He died because this was the only way
to defeat those powers we renounce
whenever we celebrate the sacrament of Holy Baptism:
sin, death, and the devil.

These are the forces of evil
arrayed against God.
They are real
and if we do not recognize them
and if we are not honest about
the sway they hold over us,
then they gain power—sometimes subtly—
over our lives.

But when we are honest about the evil in our lives,
then we are prepared to hear the call of the prophet Joel
as a word from God for us:

“Return to the LORD, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2:13b, NRSV)

And when we are honest about that evil in us,
and when we return to God,
then we can join our voices
with the psalmist and sing,

“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:1–2, NRSV)

And when we are honest
and turn back to God
and ask for forgiveness,
we can be reassured by the Good News
that St. Paul shares with us:

“For our sake [God] made him to be sin
who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NRSV)

And we turn back to God in all honesty,
seeking forgiveness and resting in his reassuring grace,
then we can embrace the discipline of faith
that Jesus gives to us in Matthew’s Gospel,
the traditional practices of giving alms, praying, and fasting.

These are not tasks from God
designed for punishment,
to make our lives dour and severe.
But rather,
they are ways to live freely,
to be purged, purified, and at peace
with God and with one another.

They help us to remain elusive to those forces of evil,
to remain focused on God,
to remain loving to one another.

The call from our Lord is simple:

“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 not rust consumes
and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19–20, NRSV)

That is the calling we receive from our Lord.
And the promise that he gives us is just as clear:

“For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21, NRSV)

In this season of Lent,
we can begin again to hear this calling,
to embrace this promise,
and to discover the peace beyond understand
and the joy beyond words
that come from living as Christians. Amen.