Sermon: Ash Wednesday – 2024

14 February 2024

Text: Joel 2:12-19

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

We have turned a new page on the calendar.  We went from yesterday’s Mardi Gras to today’s Ash Wednesday.  We went from the lingering green of the Epiphany season to the black of today and the purple of the Lenten season.  And we begin this forty-day penitential season with a reminder of our own death.

All calendars include changing seasons: winter and summer, planting and harvesting, and the annual cycle of nature.  But our spiritual lives are also based on a cycle of time  As King Solomon reminds us, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”  And all peoples around the world have times of feasting and times of fasting, times of plenty, and times of want, times to celebrate, and times to reflect.

“Remember, O man.” 

God’s people of the Old Testament had a different calendar than we have today, dear friends, but they also had times of feasting and times of fasting.  The prophet Joel reminds us of this when he calls the people to repentance with the message from God: “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people.  Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants.  Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.”

This is such a day among us, the people of God in the New Testament.  Instead of blowing trumpets, we ring bells.  But we “gather the people,” young and old.  We assemble, and we remember – “Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  And that is one of the reasons we have a calendar: to remember.  We remember history that is important to us: personal days, national days, church days.  And on this consecrated fast, at this solemn assembly, we remember the fall in Eden.  We remember the words God spoke to Adam.  We remember that we are mortal.  We remember that we are sinners.  And we remember why Jesus came into our world.

“Remember, O man.”

The ashes remind us of God’s Word spoken to Adam the man, the adam, that he would return to the dust, the adamah, from which he was made.  The ashes remind us of death.  The ashes are in the form of a cross: the ancient symbol of punishment: of the death penalty.  But this cross is not just any cross, dear friends.  It is a reminder of the cross of Jesus.  It is a reminder that Jesus also died.  But Jesus did not die for His own sins, for He has none.  Jesus died for our sins.  We are not only marked for death, we are marked for life.  We are marked for forgiveness.  We are marked for redemption by Jesus’ blood.

There will come a time to exchange the fast for the feast.  We will turn a page on our calendar after these six weeks of fasting to enjoy seven weeks of feasting.  We will exchange the cross for the crown. 

But not yet.

Joel speaks anew to us “priests, the ministers of the Lord,” when he calls us to “weep and say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a byword among the nations.’”  We who are called to preach to you, to proclaim the Word of God, both Law and Gospel, to all with ears to hear, in season and out of season, we are called especially during this consecrated fast to pray for those under our care, to pray that God will spare them, redeem them, save them, and forgive them.  We pray that the people of our congregations will remember that they are dust, but also remember that they are redeemed.  We pray that our people will recommit to the Lord, to hear His Word, to receive Jesus’ body and blood, to confessing their sins and being absolved, to teaching their children the faith, to loving their neighbor, to live out the live of repentance and of forgiveness. 

And Joel reminds the people of God the message and the promise of our gracious Lord, “Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.”

“Remember, O man.”

In season and out of season, God still promises to take care of us, dear friends.  He sends us crops.  He sends us what we need to live.  He sends us the rain and the sunshine that continue to sustain life.  But the grain, wine, and oil also have a spiritual meaning as well.  The Lord sends us grain: grain that is used to make bread.  We live not by bread alone, but by God’s Word.  And we also live by the Bread of Life: Jesus Himself, who is given to us in the bread that is His body.  The Lord sends us wine, not only to gladden the heart of man, as the Psalmist says, but also the very blood of Christ shed for the forgiveness of sins given to us to drink in the cup.  The Lord sends us oil, dear friends, not only for our worldly sustenance, but oil that is used as a symbol of your being sealed by the Holy Spirit, traced in the sign of the cross at your baptism.

That same cross has been retraced on your forehead today, dear friends, bearing the ashes that you can see with your eyes, ashes mixed with the oil of your baptism that you cannot see, except by the eyes of faith.

And it is important to remember, O man, that God provides the grain, wine, and oil for us.  We can take no credit, even though God calls human beings to plant and reap, to cultivate and harvest, to pluck and to press, according to the seasons of planting and reaping, according to the calendar that he has established.  It is still by God’s grace that these things needed for our lives, physical and spiritual, are provided as a gift.

God also provides the Savior for us, so loving the world that He sent His only son, that we would not perish, but have eternal life.  God provides the cross, Jesus takes up His cross, and in this consecrated fast, it is our gift to bear our own cross and follow Jesus.  In these forty days, we follow our Lord into the wilderness, doing battle with the devil, fasting and meditating on the Word of God. 

The calendar helps us remember.  Fasting reminds us of the reality that we are sinners in need of redemption, mortals in need of life.  “Remember, O man.”  But after the consecrated fast will come the consecrated feast.  For after the crucifixion will come the resurrection.  The cross is also a reminder of God’s love and forgiveness, of His taking the burden that we remember upon Himself, because God also remembers His promises to us.  Yes, we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  But we are also dust that shall return to life.

“Remember, O man.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.