Ash Wednesday is a day in the life of the church to stop and take stock of our priorities in the midst of our own mortality. A day to examine our lives in our thoughts, our actions, our goals. Ash Wednesday is not the most favorite holy day of the church year, but it is among the most sobering. It reminds us that we are dust and to dust we shall return… unless Christ comes again first, of course. But the main point is that it is a very real message of sin, sin around us, sin upon us, sin inside us and the result of that sin. Sin which is rebellion, falling short of God’s Law, sin is an act or thought motivated by unbelief in God which is actually an act of worship of self, the flesh, and the world: the very things which are dying and passing away. Ash Wednesday reminds us that the wages of sin is death.

We have all sinned again and again, why should God have any mercy upon us when we have taken His Law, His Grace, His forgiveness, His Word and taken it for granted again and again? We deserve death here on earth and forever in hell. We can’t put a smiley face on Lent, we can’t pretend that our sin isn’t a serious matter. It is because our sin is such a serious matter that Jesus came as a perfect sacrifice on behalf of our sin. This is why Jesus had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners to suffer and die on the cross. It was to pay for our sin. As we behold and look upon the Son of God and the Son of Man upon the cross during these 40 days, we are called to reflect upon the fact that because our sin was and is so great, He our innocent loving God, had to die in our place to pay for our sin. So, we repent, yet this is not a time for navel gazing and feeling sad, it is not a time of hopelessness, it is not merely an opportunity to jump start our diet with some sort of fast, it is certainly not a time to brag about our outward austerity and repentance as the Pharisees and hypocrites did and still do. It can be a time of disciplining the flesh and training ourselves not to be so driven by our desires but rather focusing on living by God’s Word and not on bread alone. If that is your rationale, good, but do not believe that your penitent actions save. No, what saves is the hope and trust within the very act of repentance and to whom we are turning. The hope and trust that comes through faith, faith that moves us to rend our hearts and not our garments alone. Faith that looks up from the dust and ashes of our dying bodies and looks for hope not in us but to Jesus the Christ, to His cross and by that faith in what He has done for us…because He has died upon the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, we see God’s love, and in the midst of our sorrow and tears over our sin, we see victory and forgiveness over and from these sins, for Jesus’ sake who has died but is raised triumphant over death. Though we have received ashen crosses of repentance, we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and for Christ’s sake, we are forgiven, and we know that our future is not just ashes and dust. Our bodies will not be thus destroyed forever because of our sin. Our eternity is not going to be one of weeping and gnashing of teeth, but joy… and these bodies which began in dust, which may return to dust will at the last day return in redemption to our Lord and Savior. These bodies sown in corruption shall be raised incorruptible. These mortal bodies will for the sake of Jesus Christ put on immortality.

So on this Ash Wednesday, we may have joy. Joy that God hears us, that He knows that we are dusty and dead sinners, yet He has mercy on us. Joy that we can repent and be cleansed again and again, that we can return to the waters of baptism, that we can hear again from the pastor “Your sins are forgiven for Jesus Christ’s sake.” Joy that these are not empty words and empty promises. Joy that the words which Jesus spoke from the cross, in Holy Scripture, in true teaching and preaching and in the sacrament actually has power: the power to change us mind and heart. To reorganize our priorities: from preoccupation with the things of this hopeless dying world without Christ to a life of dying in our flesh to Christ by repentance. All so that we may live now and forever in the joy and forgiveness that Jesus Christ brings in the teaching of His Word, and in receiving of His death and resurrection in His body and blood given and shed for you in the sacrament of the altar.

Therefore we gladly and willingly observe these 40 days of Lent as a time of precious cleansing, healing, and reordering from death to life as we go with Jesus to the upper room, the cross, the tomb, His rising again and ascension. These are the realities of your salvation as He does these things for you.

God made Jesus to be sin for us. Placing all our guilt on His sinless head, the Father sent Him forth as the payment for our sins, receiving in His Body the just penalty for all that we by our sins have deserved. Being made a curse for us, He died our death in our place after horrible suffering of body and soul. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.

All this Jesus did for us and our salvation. All this so that we might in Him be absolved of our sin and cleansed from our iniquity.

So as we have come clean tonight and admitted our sin and laid bare our iniquities upon the altar of Christ’s sacrifice, Christ has washed you clean by His blood from the cross. Our bodies may die and be laid in the grave, but even now He is preparing these same bodies of dust and ash to be resurrected at the last day because in His death and His resurrection He has conquered death. These same bodies that have been baptized, absolved, fed with His body and blood at His Holy Eucharistic banquet will be raised again incorruptible at the end of this age when He comes in the fullness of His glory. His grace and mercy, His gift of life in His body and blood incorruptible is here for you during your suffering and during your joy to reorder our priorities and redeem the time He has blessed us with.

Should you fail, remember, A broken and contrite heart He will not despise for the Lord has had pity on His people by His Son, and He will turn your sorrow into joy. Rejoice, for “Behold, now is the day of your salvation in Jesus Christ”, Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas