Joel 2:12-19/2 Peter 1:2-11/St Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
There is always something of a tension between lining up to receive the ashes for which this day receives its name and then hearing the Gospel text for this evening about not practicing our righteousness before others and not disfiguring our faces to show that we are fasting. That’s what some people think the ashes are doing: announcing, saying, “Look at me, I’m so pious. I’m fasting.” That is wrong.
Your Lord assumes you will fast, even as He assumes you will pray and you will give to the poor. He does not say “if,” but “when.” When you fast, when you pray, when you give. These three – fasting, prayer, and what’s known as almsgiving – have categorized Lent for centuries. They fit well with the words from St Peter: supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control.
Have you considered how tightly they are related? Fasting is simply going without food; not eating until full, stopping short. Some may fast on specific days. Others give up certain foods. But when you fast, you free up time that you don’t have to spend on finding or fixing food. And you can use that time for prayer.
And this may be as simple as praying the Litany each day throughout Lent – bringing the needs of all the world before the throne of God and begging for His mercy upon all. In fact, starting next Wednesday we will exchange the Prayer of the Church for the Litany.
And when you fast you free up funds that you are not using to pay for food. So you can give that away to the poor. Almsgiving.
Back to the disfiguring of the face. The ashes this night do not mark you as fasting, for who knows if you are? Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. The ashes don’t mark fasting. They have another origin, another genesis. Genesis three, in fact.
Recall how our first parents had fallen into sin. Created to live in harmonious union with God, they rejected this life together for an act of adultery with the devil. Eating from the tree from which the Lord had told them not to eat, they plunged themselves and their descendants after them into eternal perdition.
God spoke to the serpent and said, On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat. Then He turned to Adam and said, And you, sir, ARE dust! Adam and Eve looked in horror at the serpent as he licked his chops and they began to run away.
And we have been running from death ever since. We try to hide it. Cover it up. Ignore it. Placard it with cheerful euphemisms. But it is a futile race. The old serpent can take his time. He knows that we carry in ourselves the venom that will finally bring us down – sin itself. For that is what sin is: death in hiding; and that is what death is: sin made visible.
So the ashes on your head tonight announce to one and all: Dead man walking. Sinful, dying creature here.
Yet the ashes are always placed on the forehead in the shape of a cross. An ashen cross on the forehead not unlike the watery one you received at your Baptism to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. We are ash. We are dying. It is a reality we cannot escape.
But there is another, an even deeper reality. There is One who became our dying dust, though no poison coursed through His veins. For as Adam and Eve fled the garden to enter on their perpetual journey in the wilderness, they did so in the shadow of the promise: the Seed of the Woman would come. He would taken on our ashen flesh and destroy the tyranny of the devil. He would crush the head of that old serpent.
He is the very Treasure of Heaven, laid up for you from before the foundation of the earth. And He took on your dusty flesh. He took that dust through death and burial and then on to a glorious resurrection and life that never ends. He is risen from the dead, glorified dust has become the source of our eternal salvation!
He has washed away the dirt of your death in your Baptism. He has cleansed your lips and your life with His own Body and Blood. He has forgiven your sins. He has given you a new heart, beating the rhythm of His own heart that was broken to save you.
This is what St Peter writes! May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Practice self-control. Be steadfast. Be godly. Fast. Pray. Give alms. Not because they earn you any reward. For the heavenly Treasure, even Jesus Christ, is already yours!
He has given you a life you could never have on your own, a life overflowing with the undeserved mercy of God. He has taken away the sackcloth that so often accompanied ashes in the Old Testament; taken those rough, itchy garments, the abrasiveness of sin, and in exchange given you the seamless white robe of righteousness.
Yes, you are dying. Dust to dust. Me too. All of us return to the ground unless the glorious Appearing of our Lord comes first. But you can face down death through faith in Him who shared our dusty nature to make you holy. He became a child of man to lift you from the dust heap to be children of God.
So if anyone asks you why you wear those ashes for Ash Wednesday, you can simply say this: “I was lost and now am found. I was dead and am made alive. I was in desperate need of Savior and the Lord provided Jesus. I’ve been washed by the blood and water of Jesus’ own death for me. I am a baptized child of God. Dust I may be and to dust I will go, but dust never had it so good as to be embraced in the death and life of Jesus.” Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
There is always something of a tension between lining up to receive the ashes for which this day receives its name and then hearing the Gospel text for this evening about not practicing our righteousness before others and not disfiguring our faces to show that we are fasting. That’s what some people think the ashes are doing: announcing, saying, “Look at me, I’m so pious. I’m fasting.” That is wrong.
Your Lord assumes you will fast, even as He assumes you will pray and you will give to the poor. He does not say “if,” but “when.” When you fast, when you pray, when you give. These three – fasting, prayer, and what’s known as almsgiving – have categorized Lent for centuries. They fit well with the words from St Peter: supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control.
Have you considered how tightly they are related? Fasting is simply going without food; not eating until full, stopping short. Some may fast on specific days. Others give up certain foods. But when you fast, you free up time that you don’t have to spend on finding or fixing food. And you can use that time for prayer.
And this may be as simple as praying the Litany each day throughout Lent – bringing the needs of all the world before the throne of God and begging for His mercy upon all. In fact, starting next Wednesday we will exchange the Prayer of the Church for the Litany.
And when you fast you free up funds that you are not using to pay for food. So you can give that away to the poor. Almsgiving.
Back to the disfiguring of the face. The ashes this night do not mark you as fasting, for who knows if you are? Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. The ashes don’t mark fasting. They have another origin, another genesis. Genesis three, in fact.
Recall how our first parents had fallen into sin. Created to live in harmonious union with God, they rejected this life together for an act of adultery with the devil. Eating from the tree from which the Lord had told them not to eat, they plunged themselves and their descendants after them into eternal perdition.
God spoke to the serpent and said, On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat. Then He turned to Adam and said, And you, sir, ARE dust! Adam and Eve looked in horror at the serpent as he licked his chops and they began to run away.
And we have been running from death ever since. We try to hide it. Cover it up. Ignore it. Placard it with cheerful euphemisms. But it is a futile race. The old serpent can take his time. He knows that we carry in ourselves the venom that will finally bring us down – sin itself. For that is what sin is: death in hiding; and that is what death is: sin made visible.
So the ashes on your head tonight announce to one and all: Dead man walking. Sinful, dying creature here.
Yet the ashes are always placed on the forehead in the shape of a cross. An ashen cross on the forehead not unlike the watery one you received at your Baptism to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. We are ash. We are dying. It is a reality we cannot escape.
But there is another, an even deeper reality. There is One who became our dying dust, though no poison coursed through His veins. For as Adam and Eve fled the garden to enter on their perpetual journey in the wilderness, they did so in the shadow of the promise: the Seed of the Woman would come. He would taken on our ashen flesh and destroy the tyranny of the devil. He would crush the head of that old serpent.
He is the very Treasure of Heaven, laid up for you from before the foundation of the earth. And He took on your dusty flesh. He took that dust through death and burial and then on to a glorious resurrection and life that never ends. He is risen from the dead, glorified dust has become the source of our eternal salvation!
He has washed away the dirt of your death in your Baptism. He has cleansed your lips and your life with His own Body and Blood. He has forgiven your sins. He has given you a new heart, beating the rhythm of His own heart that was broken to save you.
This is what St Peter writes! May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Practice self-control. Be steadfast. Be godly. Fast. Pray. Give alms. Not because they earn you any reward. For the heavenly Treasure, even Jesus Christ, is already yours!
He has given you a life you could never have on your own, a life overflowing with the undeserved mercy of God. He has taken away the sackcloth that so often accompanied ashes in the Old Testament; taken those rough, itchy garments, the abrasiveness of sin, and in exchange given you the seamless white robe of righteousness.
Yes, you are dying. Dust to dust. Me too. All of us return to the ground unless the glorious Appearing of our Lord comes first. But you can face down death through faith in Him who shared our dusty nature to make you holy. He became a child of man to lift you from the dust heap to be children of God.
So if anyone asks you why you wear those ashes for Ash Wednesday, you can simply say this: “I was lost and now am found. I was dead and am made alive. I was in desperate need of Savior and the Lord provided Jesus. I’ve been washed by the blood and water of Jesus’ own death for me. I am a baptized child of God. Dust I may be and to dust I will go, but dust never had it so good as to be embraced in the death and life of Jesus.” Amen.
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