Ash Wednesday - A Blessed Path To Restoration

The Blessed Path to Restoration

Lamentation 3:37-42; 55-58 NLT “Who can command things to happen without the Lord’s permission? Does not the Most High send both calamity and good? Then why should we, mere humans, complain when we are punished for our sins? Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the LORD. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven and say, “We have sinned and rebelled, and you have not forgiven us..…But I called on your name, Lord, from deep within the pit. 56 You heard me when I cried, “Listen to my pleading! Hear my cry for help!”57 Yes, you came when I called; you told me, “Do not fear.” 58 Lord, you have come to my defense; you have redeemed my life.”

Introduction: As you begin your Lenten journey, I pray that God would pour out his Holy Spirit upon you, empowering you to take up your cross and follow Jesus. I pray that both the strength and the boldness of Jesus would be yours so that as others look at you, they see a disciple of Jesus, following not at a distance, but His side.

Does anyone know how Lent got started? It’s not in the Bible. There is no verse that says "Thou shalt celebrate Lent." Around 230 AD, a group of Christians started fasting for the 40 hours leading up to Easter. To prepare their hearts for Easter. Pretty soon, the idea caught on. Years later, they bumped it up to 7 days of fasting. And they called it Holy Week. And by 325 AD, the church officially made it 40 days. Representing Jesus’ 40 days of testing in the wilderness. That is the reader’s digest version of the tradition of Lent.

Ash Wednesday offers an opportunity for restoration, restitution, renovation, renewal, and revival. Our lesson to night is from the book of Lamentations which is a collection of 5 hymns written by the Prophet Jeremiah capturing the predicament of a godly nation fallen from grace. Jeremiah is very emotional as he records this great national catastrophe that overtook the Jews in general and the capital city, Jerusalem, in particular. After the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem in 587 BC, Jeremiah records the sufferings and the anxieties of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the cruelty experienced by the king and his nobles, priests and prophets at the hands of Babylon and their own guilt and shame.

La 3:1-66 is unique, in that Jeremiah describes his own peculiar sufferings in connection with the general calamity, and then begins a psalm of repentance seeking God’s favor. Jeremiah’s suffering was severe, not because he was an exceptional sinner, but because of the unrighteousness of his people. These hymns of Lamentation were not written during the siege, but later, at a time when the people still vividly remembered their past sufferings, and were experiencing present anxieties.

They had come into the Babylonian captivity believing the words of false prophets who had prophesied a short stay in Babylon. Now weeks had turned into months, months had turned into years and years had turned into decades and their hope had been met with disappointment; and disappointment turned into despair. Now, despondency causes people to look for someone to blame. Unbelievers and believers alike tend to blame God in time of great distress. “Where was God when the pandemic started? How could God allow this to happen? How could a God of love permit this? Couldn’t God have prevented this? Does God even care? Even Mary and Martha declared, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not die!”

"And it came to pass, after Israel had been taken away captive and Jerusalem had been laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and uttered this lamentation over Jerusalem and said." Our text is a part of his lamentations for Israel.

La 3:37 “Who can command things to happen without the Lord’s permission? Does not the Most High send both calamity and good? Then why should we, mere humans, complain when we are punished for our sins?”

Lamentations 3:37-39, seems to be the settlement of an argument as Jeremiah quiets his own heart and the heart of his people. Some believe that God had brought this calamity on Judah, others believed that God had nothing do with it. And yet others believe that God was inactive doing neither good nor evil. But Jeremiah assured them that God's control over all human affairs is unlimited; no counsel of men can be accomplished which is contrary to His high purpose. Both evil and trouble, good and blessing, sorrow and joy move at God's direction, and providence. Because of that fact, men have no need to complain. God is a just God.

Rather than complain, the Jews should check themselves. God has allowed nothing to befallen them, but what was their just reward of their sins.