In Defense of Ash Wednesday
Pastor Mathew Magera – 3/6/19 – Sermon 333
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have you ever gone out in public on Ash Wednesday
after you have received ashes? Maybe even just stopping to put gas in the car
on the way home or stopping quick at the store for that one thing you just need
today? Have you ever found yourself in a position where someone has walked up
to you and asked what that black stuff is on your forehead? Or maybe before you
get ashes you have mentioned to someone about coming to church and they ask
why. If you found yourself in a situation like that, could you defend Ash
Wednesday? If someone were to come up to you and ask why you go to worship on
Ash Wednesday and get this filthy black marking on your forehead, would you be
able to explain why you do it or why the Church does it? Why do you do it? Why
before Lent? What does it mean? Would you be able to defend it?
There are many denominations of Christianity that
wonder why their Lutheran family and friends wear ashes on their forehead at
the beginning of Lent. If you weren’t Lutheran you would probably wonder the same
thing. Is it some sort of cult ministry? Are they showing off? Trying to stand
out? Is it some secret message?
I feel confident that many of you could stand up right
now and explain Ash Wednesday. I could pick someone right now to do just that
but don’t worry, I’m not going to do that.
What if you found yourself starting to explain Ash
Wednesday and somebody threw a Bible verse back at you? I thought I might as
well do exactly that. In our Gospel reading tonight, in Matthew 6, Jesus says,
“when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure
their faces to show others they are fasting.” We hear this verse pretty much
every year on Ash Wednesday and we’re probably sitting here thinking, “Yeah
Jesus, you tell ‘em.” But, as we sit and hear these words from Jesus I want you
to take a look to your neighbor sitting near you. Does this ugly black
substance not look as if we have disfigured our faces?
Our first response to this might be to say, “oh, Jesus
was talking about the Pharisees, he was always making an example of them in
order to teach the common folk.” Well, anyone can be a hypocrite, it wasn’t
limited to just the Pharisees as we might think. We might also respond by
saying, “oh, Jesus was just talking about fasting. Receiving ashes doesn’t have
anything to do with fasting, I’m not giving anything up.” Well, you would be
wrong again. Receiving ashes has everything to do with fasting. So, if someone
came up to you and quoted this very verse that you just heard on Ash Wednesday
as a means to question or condemn this yearly practice, could you still defend
it?
Let’s start off simple. Ash Wednesday marks the first
day of the season of Lent, the 40 days before Easter. Lent is a fasting season;
many people commit to fasting or giving up certain luxuries as a form of
penitence. Many churches take many of the pleasing artifacts, decorations or
furnishings out of the sanctuary to add to the somber season. Ash Wednesday
gets its name from the practice of the imposition of ashes, where ashes would
be placed on the heads of repentant sinners. From the Bible, ashes are a mark
of humiliation, repentance, and mourning.
The purpose of fasting is to facilitate change. While
we see Lent as a time of fasting, it is helpful to know that the receiving of ashes
itself is also a form of fasting. Typically, we think of fasting as refusing to
eat for a certain period of time so as to devote more time to prayer. Fasting
may also be that Lenten practice of trying our hardest to give up chocolate or
junk food for 40 days. But, the purpose of fasting is to facilitate change.
It’s realizing that something is wrong and that a change for the better needs
to take place.
Fasting itself is very Biblical. Jesus, in our Gospel
reading seems to imply it as well. He says, “when you fast” as if he was under
the assumption that they would. Fasting was a given practice. Jesus himself
fasted, most notably in the wilderness for 40 days before he was tempted by
Satan. So, in our defense of Ash Wednesday, it’s not necessarily about whether
we should or should not fast, it’s about that marking on our heads. If the
ashes are marking that change, if the ashes are a form of fasting, how do we
get past that part where Jesus talks about disfiguring our faces?
What Jesus is warning the people in this passage is
not about the practice of Ash Wednesday, but about the true meaning of and
participation in the practice of fasting. If our fasting is not from the heart
but just merely motions that we feel we must go through, then we are hypocrites.
If the ashes are merely only the outward show of repentance without that change
that fasting facilitates, then we are hypocrites. If there is no change, then
it is as if we are the ones Jesus is speaking against. “Do not look somber as
the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are
fasting.” Fasting is about what takes place in here (heart) not what takes
place out here (body).
What Jesus was condemning here in Matthew 6 was not
the practice of fasting, nor would I say the practice of Ash Wednesday, but
rather the improper use of fasting. Fasting was an integral part of the Jewish
religion. The problem Jesus faced was that these hypocrites turned this
profitable practice into a work of self-glorification. They made it about themselves.
Now, I know that you don’t go around after worship comparing ashes with other
people saying that your ash looks better than their ash. But it’s like looking
the part but not even being a part of the show.
It’s as simple as just trying to look like you’re
fasting when you’re really not. In fasting, it is the heart that should be
affected, not the body. What Jesus was condemning when he talks about
disfiguring oneself is that these hypocrites were neglecting care for
themselves in order to give the impression that their fasting was taking a
dramatic toll on them physically. They were putting on an empty show in order
to obtain a greater reputation of holiness.
How is Ash Wednesday not an outward and improper use
of fasting? For one, the ashes aren’t physically doing anything. They are of no
physical benefit to us. They are just burnt ashes with a little oil mixed in.
Second, and this is most important, the fasting, that move, takes place on the
inside because of what the ashes symbolize. We are not placing the ashes on our
head to make us physically different. We are not placing the ashes on our head
to make us more holy or to show other people that we are more holy. We are
putting ashes on our head because we need to be reminded in here (heart) of our
condition and need for change. Now, of course we could get ashes just so we can
show them off to others but then by doing so we just walk ourselves right into
what Jesus was trying to teach against.
So, yes, what Jesus says here is true. If we are not
facilitating a change on the inside, but merely wanting to go through the
motions on the outside, then we are no more than hypocrites and the ashes on
our foreheads become a deterrent. But, if we reflect on that inward change, the
benefits of Ash Wednesday and God’s grace come pouring out.
These benefits begin with the understanding that these
ashes serve to remind us of our sinfulness, of our constant reputation of
choosing what is wrong and not what is right. These ashes remind us of what
they once were, palm branches, the ones spread on the ground when Jesus made
his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, branches that contain all our hopes
and dreams, only to be left right there on the ground serving no purpose as our
Messiah turns on us and chooses the cross over the throne we have prepared for
him. These ashes on our heads are now only faded memories, broken dreams of
what could’ve been, reminders of that time on Palm Sunday when we again got it
wrong when we thought we had it right, when we thought we were doing the right
thing. We thought we were welcoming a physical king into our physical world but
we were wrong. We chose our selfish ambition over his selfless sovereignty.
When we are willing go up to receive these ashes on
our foreheads we admit that we’ve just got it wrong. We can’t seem to make the
right choice. We have sinned against God. The ashes remind us that we need to
repent and confess, to plead with the Lord that he would purify us. The ashes
first become a humiliation to wear, a visible and tangible feeling of our
failure to love God as much as He loves us.
Not only do the ashes remind us of our spiritual
deadness, they remind us of that final consequence for being a sinner, the
physical death of our bodies. When God told Adam back in Genesis 3 that he
would return to the dust as surely as God formed him from it, God confirmed
that the final consequence of our sin is death. Ashes, that black, ugly,
remnant where life once was, reminds us of that inevitable day when we too will
be returned to the dust from which God formed us. We can’t escape it. It makes
us uncomfortable. We sometimes don’t even want to talk about it. So it is only
natural that if we are reminded of our sin, we must also be reminded of that
final consequence, that reminder that we are mortal in the face of God’s
immortality.
Lastly and most importantly, the ashes remind us of
the good news, the Gospel. That’s where the shape of the ashes comes into play.
It’s not just any marking. It’s not just a smudge, it’s a cross. It’s a cross
that says even in our sinfulness, even in our mortality, Christ enters us and
controls our destiny with his life. We remember that our Lord took on the
fullness of our humanity. He who was sinless, became our sin. He who was
immortal took on mortal flesh and bones. He hung on that cross for the purpose
of making sure that final consequence of sin would never win. Jesus took the
ashes of our past and created us anew, allowing us to live forever in God’s
presence.
We, who were once dead to our sins, who deserve to
die, now sit here today in the Lord’s presence literally wearing the cross of
Christ, the seal that secures our very life. Here, we who have humbled
ourselves before the Lord, who have admitted our sin, who know we deserve to
die, are given instead new life that is only found through the sacrifice of our
loving Lord. We who are marked with ashes are not dead as the ashes are, but
are raised up alive and strengthened through God’s mercy, love, and grace and
we are sent into the world to proclaim this very news. Though Sin is real, and
though death is real, resurrection day is real too. This is the change that is
facilitated in the imposition of ashes. This fasting ritual of a change that
cannot be done on our own but is completely dependent on the saving work of
Jesus.
So, what would we say to someone who questions Ash
Wednesday? Well, Ash Wednesday itself was not a practiced ritual in the Bible
but there is also no command against its practice. Jesus didn’t tell us to do
it as he did with baptism and holy communion. Ash Wednesday is also not about
disfiguring our faces to appear as something that we are not, it’s not about an
outward change in order to secure an earthly gain which is what Jesus speaks against.
Ash Wednesday is about an inward change to secure heavenly gain, an inward
change that begins with the realization of our sin and its consequences and
finishes with the saving Christ coming to us in our need and taking that sin
upon himself that we might have his life in return. Ash Wednesday is nothing
that we have to do as many denominations do not. But, it is an attention
grabbing reminder of what is taking place inside us and we could use as many
reminders as possible. In fact, Ash Wednesday confirms Jesus’ teaching that
disfiguring our faces does us no good because Jesus knows that only he can give
us true righteousness and holiness for that we are thankful.
As we prepare to enter Lent, I should tell you that
the reminders only begin here. The feeling of the coarse pieces of ash drawn on
your forehead, the praying and reflecting on God’s Word right now are only the
beginning of those reminders today. There is a good chance you will go home
tonight and at some point you will feel an itch on your forehead, you know that
itch I’m talking about. Much like the itch you are feeling right about now
because, you see, I majored in psychology in college and I know how to
instantly make you feel something that you haven’t been paying attention to.
You’ll feel that itch later and won’t remember you have ashes on your head
until you go to scratch that itch only to be reminded once again that you’re a
sinner as you smear that cross into a blob. But, then you’ll go to the kitchen
or the bathroom sink and with that water you will wash away that blackness just
like the waters of baptism into Christ made you clean. The reminders are there.
It’s not about what’s on your forehead. It’s not about the message it gives to
people on the street or at the gas station when you fill up your car on the way
home. It’s about that change that Christ makes in you, that monumental change
that makes us really reflect on Christ’s journey to the cross, the journey we
are now starting to make as we enter this Lenten season. I pray that those
ashes on your head would be the reminder you need to begin that reflection,
that they would not just be a disfiguration, but an invitation to further
fasting in which you discover even more so how much Jesus loves you. To God be
the glory, now and always. Amen.