Ash Wednesday March 6, 2019
Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:16-21
March 6, 2019
“Surprised by the Joy of Repentance”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Joy? How’s there joy in repentance? Ash Wednesday? Isn’t Ash Wednesday supposed to be sad and gloomy? Isn’t repentance being sorry for our sins? How’s that joyful? What’s the joy in ashes? In rubbing ashes on your forehead? Isn’t that gloomy and somber?
You might think I’m losing it to say tonight that repentance brings you joy. But I’m not. In fact, we’ll go further. Repentance is the ONLY way to true joy. Without repentance, you’ll never find true joy. Without repentance, you’ll always be a hypocrite. And there’s no joy in that.
Repentance takes all our sins out into the open and hands them to someone else. Unrepentance, on the other hand, has to try to find a way to hide our sins. And that’s cumbersome. That’s a big pain. Trying to find ways to ignore, deny, cover up, or justify your sins is miserable. Not joyful at all.
Here’s what happens when you don’t repent—when you’re unrepentant—you have to play the comparison game. You have to constantly compare yourself with other people, people who are below you, so that you can make yourself look better. There’s no joy in it. Not at all. But that’s what we have to do if we don’t confess our sins and get rid of them. We have to compare ourselves with others.
We’ve all played the comparison game. In fact, we grew up playing it and we’ve been playing it ever since. When we were kids it was simple things like “I’m smarter than you. Faster than you. Taller than you. Louder than you. Mom likes me more than you.” Then it’s “who’s better looking, who’s more popular, who’s got better clothes, and who drives the best car?” Then it’s “I went to a better college, I got better grades, I landed a better job, I married a better husband, I have better kids, I’m a better parent, and back around to I’m smarter than you.” Comparing is the perfect way to pretend like there’s nothing wrong—because all you have to say is, “Well, at least I’m not like so-and-so.”
Whenever we get any little prick of the conscience that tells us we’ve done something wrong or there’s something wrong with our lives, we just say, “Well, at least I’m not like so-and-so.” Problem solved. We compared and found somebody worse than us. Guess we’re not so bad after all. Might as well continue then in our misery, I guess.
The comparison game is misery. And all it does it create hypocrites. The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek word for actors. Pretenders. We act and pretend that everything is alright and that there’s nothing wrong because we find people that are worse off than us.
What a miserable game it is. Jesus describes it well in the Gospel reading tonight. When people would fast, they would have to make sure that their fasting looking better than other people’s fasting. So they would pretend. See the word there—“hypocrite”. They would make their faces look all sad and gloomy and disfigured so that people would see how great their pain was. They pretended. They compared. And it was miserable. They did the same thing with giving and with praying. They would make a show of it. All of this to hide the real problem—that they were terrible sinners and they needed mercy.
But the greatest example by far in the Scriptures is King David. He had this massive load of sin staring him in the face. He had slept with another man’s wife and gotten her pregnant, had her husband killed to try to cover it up, and then taken her as his own wife and pretended that all was well in the world. Was this joyful? No. In Psalm 32 he says, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.” It was miserable trying to cover it up.
The prophet Nathan comes and tells him a story about a man who had a hundred sheep. And then there was a poor man who had only one sheep. But when the rich man with a hundred sheep had a guest over for dinner, he decided to take the poor man’s one sheep and serve it for dinner. What does David say about that? Like a true hypocrite, he plays the comparison game. “Aha, I’d never do that. That guy is totally worse than me. What a loser! Tell me that guy’s name and I’ll give him what he deserves. At least I’m not as bad as that guy!” But then comes the miserable words from Nathan, “David, you’re that guy.” Uh-oh.
Trying to hide our sins is miserable. It truly is. It makes our bones waste away, as David says. But repentance—now that’s joyful. Putting away all comparisons? Now that’s joyful. Putting a stop to trying to hide and cover up and deny and ignore? And bringing it into the light and handing it over to Jesus? Now that’s joyful.
In that same Psalm 32 David says, “Blessed is the one who transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Happy and blessed is the one who repents and is forgiven. And later he says, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.”
Shouts of deliverance! What does he mean? Shouts! Like you just won a big victory! Like the end of the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals or the World Series…you just won! Shouts! Shouts of joy! Angels shouting and rejoicing over you, a sinner who repented and found the light and brought your sins to Jesus. Shouts of joy!
Yes, our sin is a drag. It’s a big pile of manure and it’s sad and gloomy and somber. And we wipe ashes on our foreheads because we’re ashamed of it. But bringing it to Jesus isn’t a drag. It’s a party. It’s the best surprise of joy you’ll find anywhere.
So let me be very specific tonight so that you may come away knowing exactly what we’re talking about. What should you do to have the joy of repentance? Well, there’s some very specific things. The first is prayer. When you lay your head down at night, pray to God for forgiveness. You can use Luther’s evening prayer which says, “I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong.” Otherwise, just say your own prayer where you ask God to forgive all the sins you committed today and commend yourself to Him for a good night’s sleep.
Besides your prayer right when you go to bed, though, you’ll pray another time of day. Maybe in the morning. Or at noon. Or whenever. And there is where you will confess more specific sins. These will always be changing a bit. Because as you get older and older as a Christian, the sins you will battle will change a bit. A few will stay the same. But you’ll often find that when God helps you to get rid of one sin, you will then discover something else lurking in your heart that you will also want to get rid of. And that’s the joy of repentance. It truly is a joy. You confess sins to Him and God helps you to drive them away. And that freedom is joyful. And then your prayers will change because you’ll find another sin that is keeping you from joy. And you’ll confess that one and God will help you to drive it away. And so on it goes. Some will be much harder than others. But prayer roots them out.
Another very specific thing you do to have the joy of repentance is exactly what you’re doing here tonight. You come to church and receive the Lord’s Supper. You kneel before the Lord at this altar and confess, “I have sinned.” And God gives you the body and blood of Christ for your joy.
Finally, another very specific thing that you do is confess your sins to someone else. This is very important. If you have hurt your wife, you go and confess to her and say, “I’m sorry.” If you’ve hurt your husband, you tell him, “I’m sorry that I did such and such.” If you hurt your good friend, go to her and say, “I’m really sorry I did that.” If you’ve hurt anyone in particular, you repent and tell them, “I’m sorry.” Any of you who have done that work of going to someone specifically and saying I’m sorry, you know the joy of that repentance. It’s wonderful.
And God has also given you one specific person you may always go and confess your sins to and receive the joy of forgiveness. That’s your pastor. That’s a big part of my job. To hear confession and repentance and pronounce forgiveness. And any of you who have done that also know what a great joy it truly is.
So don’t be deceived by Ash Wednesday. Yes, it’s a somber service and the paraments are black and we put ashes on our forehead and we confess. But all of that is just a prelude to joy. Repentance brings joy. That’s why we repent. Because God loves us and forgives us and gives us freedom from our sin. He surrounds us with shouts of deliverance.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.