March 6, 2019

Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
 
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
 
In a few moments
we will each hear those words
 as ash, the dust of a once living plant,
is smeared on our foreheads.
 
 As we enter into the season of Lent
 where we journey with Jesus to the cross and the grave
 we take time to consider our mortality
 
Generally when we think of THE END,
that is death,
we tend to lean more in the direction of Joel:
 
“Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.”  
 
THE END is scary,
 and while Joel ultimately offers hope
 in the form of the mercy of God
we’ve gotten stuck on the scary part,
 
and we’ve become so scared as a culture
 we’ve taken to denying death,
 we hide it,
we try to pretend it won’t happen to us,
 we try to make it look less like death,
 
and the result is
that we’ve become so afraid of death
 that it gets in the way of life
 
we’ve forgotten the fundamental truth
that out of death comes new life.
  
We see this truth in nature
 after a wildfire when flowers cover a newly opened meadow,
as a bear catches a fish and feeds it to her young,
 
we’ve experienced this
when the death of one relationship
has paved the way for one more life giving
 
and most of all we have Easter morning
and the empty tomb,
 a miracle because the tomb was full on Good Friday.
 
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
 
In a few moments
we will each hear those words
 as ash is smeared on our foreheads
 in the sign of the cross.
 A symbol of death turned into a symbol of salvation.
 
Where Joel calls for repentance saying who knows, God in mercy might relent?
Paul says we know how it will go for us
 because: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
 
God knew that no matter how much we repented,
 or fasted
 or offered sacrifices
or did any of the other things that humans do
 to try to get right with God
 that we would never be able to get there,
we would never be able to make ourselves right with God.
 
 So God took care of it,
 through Jesus
and joined to Christ in baptism
God counts us as righteous
 
Which means,
 we don’t have to wait until THE END
to find out what is going to happen,
  
the scary unknown of Joel is resolved
 we know where we stand with God,
we have been saved
past tense continuing action.
 Salvation in now
 and stretches into the future
 
God says “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! “
 
Now is the day of salvation.
Right now.
We don’t have to wait.
 
 In fact God is working through us
 as ambassadors for Christ
 so that others may be relieved of fear
and the unknown
by the salvation available now,
 no waiting required.
 
But in this world where there is always a catch
it sounds too good to be true
and there are times when we doubt
even as we call ourselves Christian,
 the Corinthians doubted
so Paul wrote to them saying “As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.”
 
And that brings us right back to Ash Wednesday
 because accepting the grace of God in vain
 looks like saying we have the grace of God
 but not living like we have the grace of God.
 
 It looks like a fear of death so great
 that it gets in the way of life,
 
 it looks like storing up treasures on earth,
placing trust in ourselves
 in our own hands
rather than entrusting our lives to God
who has already saved us by grace.
 
The repentance of Ash Wednesday and Lent
 is about living into the grace of God that is ours, now.
Any fasting we do
 or spiritual practices we may add in this time
are about quieting the distractions
 that call us away from living in the present grace of God.
 
And yes this is difficult,
we live in a world that profits from fear
and seeks to quiet those who say otherwise
 
and so we start this season
by marking our opposition on our foreheads,
 embracing without fear
that which the world fears most,
and in doing so
turning as best we are able
to live in the grace of God
that is ours, now. Amen