Ash Wednesday 2011

Sermon Ash Wednesday 2011

Text: Psalm 51

This day marks the beginning of our Lenten Journey. A journey into ourselves, and hopefully then out of ourselves into the world, but either way finally leading us to the cross which is what truly matters. On this day we are marked with that cross upon our foreheads.

Lent often turns into a period of solemnity, of inner contemplation, but can become individualistic, about what we do. We must remember that what Lent is about, and what everything is ultimately about, is God. The God who went to the cross and died for us. And truly, we need so much more time than 40 days to consider the implications of that action.

During this years Lenten Journey we will be praying the psalms. This week the entire church reads Psalm 51. And for the rest of this church's Lenten Journey 5 local Pastors will visit as they examine a psalm that prayerfully connects them with God, and with the cross. My psalm that I will journey with, both meditatively and physically to other local churches, will be Psalm 46. While you will not hear it yourselves during this Lent, you have already heard one rendition of my contemplation of it. Psalm 46 is the psalm of Martin Luther on Reformation Day, and it is the psalm of Earthquake and destruction for me. Through you I have journeyed further on my contemplation of this psalm, but the prayerful journey continues.

But this day we focus on Psalm 51 and we focus on Ash Wednesday. We begin Lent by dirtying ourselves. We mark our foreheads with soot, ash, dirt, dust. We begin Lent by examining and announcing that we are sinful beings and that despite our best efforts we sin, time and time again. We regard our own mortality on this day. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We see that we are not the center. We see the dirt and pain of our lives and know that we are mortal, dirty creatures.

Psalm 51 is a cry for penitence from one who has realized this depth of dirt and sin about himself. It is David's prayer of recompense following his misdeeds to Bathsheba and the death of her husband Uriah. The Prophet Nathan confronts him and tells of the horrific things David has done. And David realizes that he has become obsessed with himself and has forgotten who gives him life. And so he cries for forgiveness. Specifically he cries for washing.

He cries for washing on three different occasions. Which progress further and further into himself. His first two actions speak of washing as an external matter. In the first two verses he asks for blotting and washing. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your | steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out | my offenses. 2Wash me through and through | from my wickedness, and cleanse me | from my sin.” He asks for immediate washing, cleansing from the marks of sin upon his outside. He realizes that he has done wrong and asks for forgiveness from that wrong.

But David does not stop there. He knows and understands that this method of living, this way of being, as a sinful being will continue. He know that his sin is always there, and that he has been steeped in wickedness, a sinner from his mother's womb. And so he asks for further washing. Washing with hyssop. Hyssop is interesting for a couple reasons. One it is an agent that causes vomiting. David is envisioning the complete emptying of himself of all sinful behavior through the actions of the Lord. But, it is so much more than that. The hyssop branch was the branch used to mark the blood of the Passover upon the doors of the houses in Egypt. This image tells us to focus not upon the penitence of David, but the great actions of God cleansing David and freeing the people of Israel.

For the importance here is not David, but God. And David realizes this. He concludes the psalm with asking God to open his mouth, so he may proclaim praises.

We ourselves are just as great of sinners as David. Each the same as our neighbor. We are all simply dust. We ask for forgiveness knowing that we are at the same bottom rung as everyone around us, none greater or lower than the other. And so we are all marked the same. We upon our foreheads are marked with the cross of Christ. It marks us as the children of God we are. Just as on Sunday when we were pulled back to Jesus' baptism, so are we today pulled back to our own. For the cross of ashes marking us today, is the same cross marked upon our foreheads in Baptism. David cries for washing. We have already been washed. Our washing through Baptism cleans us once and for all. Our baptism is a great flood of water, reaching every part of our life, every part of our being. It finds all the nooks, and crannies, the secret places we share with no one, and cleanses them, restores them, and renews us. But, during this time of Lent, we ponder again and again, the fact that like David, we are continuous sinners.

We come again and again for forgiveness, but through baptism and through the cross, forgiveness has already been given. The great mystery and wonder of Lent that we spend 40 days pondering is that Jesus' death upon the cross is all.

No matter who we are, as baptized Christians we all turn to the cross, the same cross. The same cross that has been marked upon our heads, upon our beings, and cannot be removed. The same cross that we need. And Christ's death upon the cross with which we are marked came before we knew we needed it.

This Lent we consider what God has done for us, and what we do in response. We work to bring the Kingdom of God here by helping those in need, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and seeing the cross of Christ upon the foreheads of our neighbors, and proclaiming the Good News of God's love to all the world. We consider the God who came to us, the God who was raised, the God who dies for us.

Today we remember that

We are simply dust,

and to dust we shall return,

but we are dust that is loved.

Let us pray,

Our Redeemer, journey with us during our Lenten travels. God of grace, work within us to be aware of the great mercy you have given us. Empower us to see where we are to work in this world, helping those whom your Son Jesus went to in their need, the outcast, downtrodden, and hurt. Open our eyes to your loving care in the world. Help us feel your love shown through the cross we are imprinted with.