Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:12-19
Let’s suppose that after we left church this evening, we locked up the doors, and none of us came back until 5 years later. Not a single person set foot on this very property until Ash Wednesday, 2009. When we do come back, what would our church look like after 5 years of no upkeep? The grass would be waist-high. The hedges would be overgrown and uneven. Our church sign would be full of 5 years worth of bugs. And the nice white exterior of our building would have ugly mildew patches all over it. The mailbox would be so full of letters and bills that the mailman stopped trying to fill it ages ago. And because none of those bills had been paid, the electricity would be off and the entire property would be dark. In short, there would be a lot of cleaning up to do.
That gives you a good idea of the state of Temple in Jerusalem when the prophet Joel was young. Centuries of misuse and disuse had caused Solomon’s once magnificent structure to look more like a building in the slums than in the upscale section of Jerusalem. But then there was a turnaround. In Chronicles we read about how this dilapidated building was clean up and refurbished. And after this remodeling took place, the offerings and sacrifices were restored and Temple life returned to normal. Well, almost.
Joel wrote the words of our text because there was still a problem. The turnaround wasn’t complete. Everything looked good on the outside, but there really hadn’t been much of an internal change with these people. God wasn’t looking for an outer change as much as he was looking for an inner one.
It’s the same for us as we gather tonight on Ash Wednesday. God is looking for repentance from you, a change. He doesn’t just want you to say all the right words while you are here tonight, and he isn’t interested in giving you an assignment list of duties to work on when you get home. Outward actions are nice, but if there is no inward change, it’s really all for naught.
Part I
That neglected building that we talked about a minute ago, that church that no one took care of for the past 5 years, is you. If you were to take an honest look at your life, what do you see: more good, or more bad? Or think of it this way: can you say that during this past year, you have been more interested in the things of God vs the things of this world? In just this past week, can you honestly say that the Lord has always taken first place in your heart, or has he sort of slipped through the cracks as other priorities crowded God out? Perhaps it is your means of income, maybe it’s spending time with friends, maybe it’s the television or the computer, maybe it is simply “me” time. We sure are good at scheduling things that bring us happiness…and making sure that we keep those appointments. But have you been so busy taking care of the other matters of your life, to the neglect of the church inside of you? Is that building strong, well-kept, and beautiful? Or do you see instances where you have let the lawn become overgrown, when you saw that repairs to the structure needed to be made, but you put it off until later? Sometimes, we lock the doors of our hearts, and just expect that our faith will remain intact, and so we can take a little vacation from working hard on our Christian lives, and when we come back, everything will be fine.
Tonight, we go to God’s Word and he has something to say to people who haven’t been the most faithful followers of him. It’s Ash Wednesday, and it’s a perfect day to do some housecleaning in your heart. He has a one-word instruction for you: the sixth word of our text, “Return!” If you’ve been away from the Lord for a while, or if you haven’t followed him as vigorously as you know you should, God is holding out an invitation to you tonight: “Return! I want you back!”
As we dig deeper into our text, God tells us how he wants us to return to him. The Lord says to you, “Rend your heart and not your garments.” Back in Bible times, if you were really upset over something, you would tear your clothes as a sign of sadness. But many of the people played a little game with God. When they were confronted with their sin by God’s priests and prophets, they would tear their clothes, they would put ashes on their heads. They’d do everything that made them look sad, and then they would go back to those same sins. The problem was, they were trying to cure cancer with a band-aid. If I got a lump of cancer here on my arm, I could put a band-aid over it and then I wouldn’t have to look at it. But the underlying problem wouldn’t be solved. God tells you, “Rend your heart and not your garments.” These outward things that we are doing tonight, putting ashes on our forehead, kneeling before God, confesing our sins, singing sad songs, they are all nice things to do, but they mean absolutely nothing if we are playing the crying game with God, telling him tonight how sorry we are, and returning home to the same worldly life we have been leading.
The Lord helps us get into the proper mindset when he says, “return to me with all your heart.” This is a total commitment. When a husband and wife get married, they commit their lives totally to each other. Could you imagine at your wedding having your spouse promise to be faithful to you on everyday expect Thursdays? Thursday is just the one day where the dedication is off. A partial faithfulness is really no faithfulness. When God invites you to return to him, he wants it all. God wants your whole life from you. Just one or 2 days isn’t a commitment. The Lord wishes you to serve him 7 days a week. That is “returning to the Lord with all your heart.”
But someone might say, “I don’t have a need to return to God. I’m not that bad.” Or another might say, “I don’t have time to commit myself totally to God.” These excuses really don’t fly with God. He tells us of the universal need for all to repent. “bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the temple porch and the altar.” God includes everyone here. Elders, mature people. Children and babies. Even the priests! We would think that if anyone was Ok with God, it would be his church workers, right? But see the universal need for repentance! See that God considers this more important than anything else. He even encourages the newly-married bride and groom put off consummating the marriage until they have both returned to the Lord.
This repentance, it has to start in the heart, it has to be a total commitment of the heart to God, and there should be true sorrow attached. “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Perhaps you heard of the woman on Monday, who was driving drunk in the Target parking lot just up on 50, she rolled her Ford Explorer, and killed her 15 year old daughter who was a passenger. How do you think that woman has been feeling the past 2 days? I’m sure an hour hasn’t gone by where she wished she could have that moment back. There has to be an incredible amount of weeping being done by that mother over her actions. That’s how God wants you to feel about your sins. When we sin, we hurt God even more than that mom hurt her daughter. It is good for us to think on our sins tonight, so that we realize how much we cause God pain by our actions.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read through the 95 Theses, remember that document that Martin Luther nailed to the church door, containing those points that he made about what Christianity was really about. The first of those theses reads, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent,” he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Sincere repentance is a process that is repeated over and over throughout your life.
Part II
Even on Ash Wednesday, as we stress the desperate need that we have for repentance, there is a silver lining in all this. We see it in the first two words of our text, “Even now…” There is time for you to come back to God. Even now, with your rebellious past, somehow, the Lord still wants you. We talk about doing spiritual housecleaning tonight on Ash Wednesday, having genuine from-the-heart repentance. And God does something awesome when we come to him on his terms. The Sinner Repents, and the Lord Relents.
Listen to verse 13, “Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” You are that mother, arrested for drunk driving, hopelessly guilty. And as you wait in court to be sentenced for your crime, the judge says, “I find you innocent on all counts!” That sounds impossible! It sounds too good to be true! Because you know you’re a sinner. You can think of all the wrong things you have done throughout your life. But that’s exactly why you have come here tonight. Because your God is God who relents. He’s the judge who doesn’t sentence you to your punishment.
As we take our steps toward the cross of Jesus this Lent, we learn how God can afford to declare us innocent. He let us off the hook by placing Jesus on the cross. During these next 6 weeks, we will see how God transferred our guilt to his innocent Son Jesus. Here we learn why we love Jesus so much: because he gave every bit of himself to us.
I know that we all know this already, but can we make our deliverance from sin and our salvation more meaningful? A popular thing to do during Lent is to give up something that you enjoy. There are wrong ways to observe that custom: considering yourself to be more spiritual than someone who isn’t giving up something for Lent. Supposing that the act of giving up something puts you in better standing with God. But there are proper ways of going about that custom: if it helps you to remember that Jesus gave up everything for you, so out of thanks you are going to give up something that you love for him. In that sense it’s an offering of sorts. But you know, avoiding chocolate or not watching your favorite TV show for a month and a half isn’t going to make you more spiritual…unless you fill that void with the Word of God and prayer. And there is the key: Jesus has given you everything. Your sins are all forgiven. You have a home waiting for you in heaven. There really isn’t anything more important and valuable than that.
God doesn’t command that we give up something for Lent, but if you choose to do that tonight, here is a way so that will be a spiritual benefit to you. Think of a thing or things that you really enjoy doing: maybe it’s eating a particular food or drinking a certain beverage. Maybe it’s an activity like shopping, exercising. Maybe it’s staring at the television or computer screen for hours on end. If you choose tonight to give something up for Jesus, then be sure to replace it with prayer, and Bible study. Maybe instead of spending 2 hours watching a basketball game, you go into your room, and read through some of the Gospel of John, slowly, digesting every word, considering how God is talking to you, praying that the Lord speaks to you and makes you a better Christian. Our text ends with these words, “I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully.” We repent, God relents. And when we go into his Word, God opens his storehouse of spiritual treasures to us and gives us gift after gift. The Lord wants to replace the trivial things in your life with real gifts. Gifts like: a peace in your heart that can deal with any problem. Like a greater willingness and ability to serve the Lord Jesus in your life. And when you have these spiritual treasures, you aren’t going to miss the trinkets of the world so much, because God has a way of replacing them with something far more satisfying.
Conclusion
So tonight, let’s get rid of the clutter. Your Christian life resembles a building that needs some upkeep, and Lent is the time to get to work. The Lord wants you to turn to him. He will give you the power to do just that. He will point you to his Son Jesus, and remind you that though this life is a struggle, Jesus won the ultimate struggle for you. He has fixed you up, and made you that glistening, beautiful building in which will dwell forever. God has made you into a building like that, and now with the Spirit’s help, strive to keep that building kept us! Don’t be satisfied with mere cosmetic improvements, but beg the Lord to use the Word to change your heart to make you a more repentant, more useful servant in God’s kingdom. Amen.
sdg
