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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As what should be our Lenten Fast, to some extent modeled on Jesus’s own fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, begins today, Ash Wednesday, we heard our Lord Jesus Christ in tonight’s Gospel Reading excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount speak of giving to the needy, praying, and fasting with the right motives: not in order to be praised by or to be seen by others and so to have a reward on earth but to give, pray, and fast in such a way so as to receive from our Father and to “lay up” treasures in heaven so that one’s heart is also there. One’s turning in sorrow from one’s sin and trusting God to forgive one’s sin lead to a practice of righteousness that may well be observable to others in the world, but our repentance and faith are not done in order to gain the world’s approval but to gain our Father’s approval. Tonight we reflect on the Ash Wednesday Gospel Reading and do so under the theme “Personal Piety and Heavenly Treasure”.
We do well to note that Jesus takes for granted that we will give to the needy, pray, and fast, for He speaks about when we give to the needy, pray, and fast. If we are not giving to the needy or doing other acts of mercy, praying, and fasting, then we need to start doing so. And, on this Ash Wednesday, we especially think about fasting: temporary abstention from nourishment in general or from certain foods in particular (or perhaps something else that we enjoy) as part of our religious devotion, perhaps showing our submission to God and His judgment that we deserve or responding to what our Lord Jesus Christ endured in His earthly life for us.
Yet, as our Lord Jesus Himself said, we ought not to fast first and foremost in order to be seen as fasting by other people. No doubt that, if we fast for an extended period of time, some people with whom we normally spend time, especially over meals, will inevitably notice either our not eating or our eating and drinking differently than we do at other times, but such observation surely is not what our Lord Jesus has in mind. Rather, our Lord Jesus seems to have in mind those who try to appear other than they really are, making themselves appear to be gloomy when in fact they are not gloomy, and perhaps even should not be gloomy, since followers of Jesus in repentance turn to a Judge Who ultimately forgives them (Bieder, TDNT 7:451).
If we do not fast at all, we may also be unwilling to try to control our body, mouth, and mind in regards to other urges, which urges may be well and good when satisfied in the right way and in moderation, but which urges may result in our sinning when we satisfy them in improper ways and in excess. Our lack of self-control can not only lead us to sin against ourselves but also lead us to sin against our neighbors as we are more concerned about “loving” ourselves than about loving them. And, as with all sin, we first and foremost sin against God. For any such sin, as well as on account of our sinful natures, we deserve both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity.
Created of dust from the ground (Genesis 2:7), on account of our sin, we all will return to dust and the ground (Genesis 3:19). With an apparent play on words in the Hebrew, Abraham coupled dust with ashes (Genesis 18:27), and the Committal ceremony that we use for Christian Burial extends the pairing out one more: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust (LSB: Agenda, 130). Dust rightly remind us of God’s sovereignty, our lives’ dependence on His grace, and our insignificance apart from His breath of life (RBA, TWOT #1664, p.687), and the ashes we received tonight further reflect our humility before God, our fasting and other sorrow over our sin, and also our faith that He will forgive our sin—all our sin, whatever our sin might be—for Jesus’s sake (CLF, TWOT #150, p.66).
Bible commentators generally are agreed that most of tonight’s Gospel Reading (with our Lord Jesus’s talk of giving to the needy, praying, and fasting) is one section and that the following verses (with our Lord Jesus’s talk of laying up treasure on earth or in heaven) is part of another section. Yet, those who put together our series of appointed readings nevertheless combined the verses into the one Gospel Reading, perhaps seeing a connection between the Father’s rewarding (proper giving, praying, and fasting) and the laying-up of treasure in heaven. Nevertheless, we must be clear that Jesus is not suggesting, and we should not think, that our giving, praying, and fasting in any way can earn or merit our forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven. Rather, our giving, praying, and fasting follow from God’s first making us righteous by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. As we heard in tonight’s Epistle Reading (2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10), for our sake, God made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Only as God enables us by, in the words of tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 51; antiphon: v.17), creating in us a clean heart and renewing a right spirit, are we able to, in the words of tonight’s Old Testament Reading (Joel 2:12-19), rend our hearts, and ultimately lay up treasures in heaven so that our hearts are also there.
God so transforms us, hearts included, through His Word in all of its forms, especially the Word’s sacramental forms: attached to water in Holy Baptism, to a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and to bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. As counterintuitive as it might seem, the ashes we received are connected to our baptism, by way of the Old Testament background for baptism that includes, for example, water of cleansing made from the ashes of a red heifer (Numbers 19:1-22). And, fasting and other bodily training, such as that our Lenten Fast begun with ashes can be, is commended by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism as “fine outward training”, though we remember that we are “truly worthy and well prepared” for the Sacrament of the Altar by faith in Jesus’s words “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins”.
Those using ashes and sackcloth (like the burlap in our banners) as signs of fasting and mourning in the Old Testament reportedly would throw the ashes toward heaven and have them fall back on themselves, especially their heads (CLF, TWOT #150, p.66). Those criticized by Jesus for “disfiguring their faces” apparently would pour the ashes on their heads, with the ashes settling on their cheeks and making them look pale and weak (Gundry, ad loc Matthew 6:16-18, p.111), presumably as if their fasting was taking a more of a severe toll on them than it really was. Our ashes imposed in the shape of the cross on our forehead, with which shape and on which location we were signed at our baptisms, may well be seen by others as a witness to them but, God being willing, not a witness of our trying to gain their approval on earth but a witness of our having God’s approval in heaven, by grace through faith in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our giving to the needy, praying, and fasting flow from God’s transforming us and so are fruits of our repentance and faith done according to our various callings in life. Likewise, our efforts to subdue and otherwise control our bodies, mouths, and minds are fruits of our repentance and faith, though we will always fail to subdue and control them perfectly and so we will always need God’s forgiveness as long as we live on this earth.
In heaven our treasure is, and so, Jesus says, there our hearts will be also. Reflecting on the Gospel Reading we have realized the close connection between “Personal Piety and Heavenly Treasure”. As God wills, we will make our way through this Lenten fasts and as many more Lenten fasts as please Him, until the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ comes, and He changes our lowly bodies so that they are like His glorious body, and we bear the image not only of the man of dust but also of the Man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:47-49).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +