Sermon delivered Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. If you would like to hear the audio version of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.
Lectionary texts: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What is the Human Condition?
Good evening, St. Andrew’s! Immediately after this sermon, about three hours from now, Fr. Ron is going to call us to observe a Holy Lent, of which self-examination and repentance are an integral part. This evening I want to focus on why the Lenten disciplines are good for us and how we should approach them.
The root problem, of course, and the reason we have a Lenten season in the first place is human sin. God created us to have a relationship with him, a relationship of Creator and creature, where we recognize that God is God and we are not. When this happens, in biblical terms this means that we are “righteous.” In other words we are in a right or proper relationship with God and with our fellow humans. The results of righteousness are always peace and justice because we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we love our neighbors as ourselves. As Genesis 1-2 remind us, before the Fall, this is the kind of relationship we humans enjoyed with God. It is a winsome and compelling picture that reminds us of the intrinsic worth and goodness of God’s creation and creatures.
But human sin changed all that. We humans were not satisfied in being a creature of God. We want to be the Creator! We were not interested in living according to God’s standards, standards that would bring us peace and happiness. No, we are more interested in living according to our own standards, and our standards are unrighteous because they are typically self-centered and lead to discord and death (Romans 6:23). As Paul reminds us in Romans 3:10ff, there is no one who is righteous, not even one. All have turned away from God. We are thoroughly and utterly infected with sin, incapable of healing ourselves. It is a sad and fearsome picture the Bible paints about the human condition, isn’t it? And the picture is made worse when we consider the fact that one day history will end and each of us will have to face God’s wrath if a solution is not found. This is what Joel was referring to when he speaks of “the day of the Lord” and we should all be quite sober when we reflect on that day because it will not be pretty for those who are not reconciled to God.
Where is God’s Grace?
Now if the biblical story of the human condition ended here, none of us would have any reason to be here tonight because there is absolutely no hope for us. Indeed, if that were its emphasis, the Christian faith would be the cruelest of all because it would condemn without giving any hope.
But the Christian faith is at its core Good News, the Good News of Jesus Christ, and it is a faith that has great hope for us because it proclaims what God has done to rescue us from our dire straights. Paul gives us the essence of the Gospel in tonight’s Epistle lesson. He tells us that for our sake, God made Christ sin so that we could be the righteousness of God.
What does that mean? It means that while God remains utterly opposed to evil—that is essentially what the Bible means when it speaks of God’s wrath—God is also a merciful God who wants his people to live and not die. Consequently he took on our flesh and bore the terrible punishment for our sins, the punishment we rightly deserve, so that our relationship with him could be restored. Through the blood of Christ we are reconciled to God. That is what Paul meant when he talked about Jesus becoming sin. Paul did not mean that Jesus sinned, but rather he suffered and died for us so that the essential nature of our relationship to God was changed. The word reconcile means to “change thoroughly” and through Christ our relationship with God was changed for the good. We have regained a righteousness in God’s eyes where we had none before, the righteousness of Christ. It is a righteousness that is ours by grace through faith and there is nothing we can do to earn or deserve it. It is God’s free gift to us. Thanks be to God!
Where is the Application?
So what does this have to do with observing a Holy Lent? Just this. When we truly understand what God in Christ has done for us, and how utterly futile is our condition without him, it makes us want to have a different kind of relationship with God. To repent means to “turn around,” to embark on a new relationship with God, the kind of relationship we were created to have in the first place. Jesus talks about the essence of repentance in tonight’s Gospel lesson when he urges us to store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. In other words, Jesus is reminding us to keep the main thing the main thing (and life with God is the main thing).
But repentance cannot be a superficial thing; it must stem from a sincere desire to have a new kind of relationship with God, a relationship that God made possible for us to have through the cross of Christ. Real repentance always stems from a realization of the gravity of sin and what it has cost God to overcome our sin. That is why Joel urges us to rend our hearts, not our garments. By saying this, Joel is reminding us that repentance is not a matter simply between persons, although sometimes that is necessary, but between God and us. Joel knew that real repentance is about our willful intent as much as it is about what we do. He understood that sometimes repentance is only superficial and consequently not repentance at all.
Jesus recognized this too when he talks about how to pray and fast. Unlike the Pharisees, who practiced their piety for the benefit of others, Jesus tells us to practice our piety for the benefit of God. Doing so will demonstrate our desire to repent and have a new or deeper relationship with our Creator. When we focus on living our lives the way God intends rather than on bean counting, doing a bunch of things for the sake of doing them, we are rending our hearts, not our garments. We are engaging in the act of real repentance and demonstrating our sincere desire to enter into a proper kind of relationship with God. What an awesome opportunity!
Paul’s Epistle is a classic example of what true repentance looks like. Before Christ claimed him on the road to Damascus, Paul persecuted the Church and sought to destroy it. As he tells us in Galatians and Philippians (cf. Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:13-17), he was a Pharisee’s Pharisee, and likely a very self-righteous individual, proud of the way he kept the Mosaic Law.
But after Christ claimed him, we see a different Paul. Notice in tonight’s Epistle for whom Paul lives. It is not for himself but for Christ. He describes the hardships he has endured but he also tells us his secret: he has the Holy Spirit living in him, empowering him to do the ministry he was called to do, and Paul found joy and peace in it, despite his hardships, precisely because he was reconciled to God through Christ. Here is the second key to true repentance. We must do what it takes to allow the Holy Spirit to live in us so that he can transform us into Christ’s very image. In biblical language that is called dying to ourselves. It is the fruit of repentance and it requires self-discipline. We should therefore understand repentance as a decision followed by a Spirit-driven process of becoming like Christ.
What does this mean for us as we enter this Lenten season? First, it means that we need to be examining ourselves, focusing on those things that are truly standing in our way and preventing us from growing in our relationship with God. Every one of us has something that we need to let God purge in us. It might be addiction or greed or pride. Whatever it is, it means that we must be brutally honest with ourselves and see ourselves as God sees us. Then we must do what it takes to start putting those things to death. This will inevitably mean that we must rend our hearts and demonstrate to God our desire to change the nature of our relationship with him.
Once we have resolved to do this, we must invite the Holy Spirit to come and live in us, and we must have faith that he will. This usually doesn’t just happen without our cooperation. It requires some effort on our part. It involves a commitment to drink deeply of God’s word through daily reading and reflection of Scripture. It means that we earnestly seek the Spirit’s will and presence through prayer. It means connecting with fellow believers to help us be accountable to each other, and to let the Spirit work in and through us to transform us. Make no mistake. The Spirit is the One who heals and transforms us, but we must engage in the necessary discipline and self-denial to make room for him to come and live with us. He is so gentle he will never come where he is not invited.
This, of course, puts a whole different light on observing a Holy Lent. It means we are not interested in superficial discipline because we think that is what we are supposed to do. No, observing a holy Lent means first that we are not interested in bean counting, but rather we are interested in entering into or growing in our relationship with this God of ours who loves us passionately and is infinitely merciful to us. It means we are interested in rending our hearts, and with the help of the Spirit, working to put to death that which is in us that keeps us alienated from God. This is what Paul meant when he told the Philippians to work out their salvation in fear and trembling. By that he did not mean that we earn our salvation; that is utterly impossible. Rather, Paul is encouraging us to engage in the hard work of discipline and self-denial that make it possible for the Holy Spirit to live within us and do the impossible work of transforming us. When that happens, we will surely see the fruit of the Spirit to which Paul referred in tonight’s Epistle and in Galatians 5:22-23.
Summary
Observing a Holy Lent requires that we have humility. We must acknowledge the seriousness of our sin and how grievous it is to God. We must remember the terrible cost God paid to redeem us and this should further rend our hearts. But it should also evoke a response of thanksgiving and gratitude for all that God has done for us in Christ. This inevitably leads to a desire to have a new and/or deeper relationship with God, and stirs up in us the desire to clean house so that he can come and live in us and transform us into his very image. God has given us all that we need to be reconciled to him and to have peace with him and each other.
Do you love him enough to do your part so that you can enjoy real life with him starting right now? If you are, you will not be disappointed. Hardships and setbacks will inevitably come as you are transformed into Christ’s image, but they are a small price to pay for the immeasurable reward that is ours: being able to live with the Source and Author of all life. This Lenten season, observe a Holy Lent so that you may know and enjoy real life. Be thankful that you have a God who has done the impossible for you. It will make the hard work of discipline and self-denial something that is full of joy rather than something that is an obligation. We have a God who loves us passionately and wants us to have a life-giving and life changing relationship in this world and the next. What a glorious opportunity that is for us. And yes folks, that’s also good news, now and for all eternity.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.