Ash Wednesday February 26, 2020
Ash Wednesday
1 John 1:9; Joel 2:12-19; Matthew 6
February 26, 2020
“Trusting the Lord When You Confess Your Sin”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Maybe some of you have done one of the trust falls where you drop yourself backwards from high up and trust others to catch you. That can be pretty much the exact feeling when confessing our sins to others or to God. It takes much trust. You’re dropping yourself off this great height and praying that someone will be there to catch you and not let you fall to the ground broken.
Or when you go into an open heart surgery and they’re going to cut you open, you have to trust that someone knows how to put you all back together before you wake up. Again, this is the thing when confessing our sin. We’re cutting open our heart and laying it bare before someone. We need to be able to trust that they will be able to sew us back together and heal the wound.
We Lutherans have much practice at this because we do it nearly every Sunday in Church at the beginning of the service. We say our general confession, “O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner confess unto you all my sins.” But a general confession is also certainly different than a particular confession. It’s one thing to say, “Yes, I’m a sinner,” and another to say, “God, I’m a mean wife or a jerk husband or bad friend or an angry person with a quick temper.” If you’re going to come out with particulars then you’re laying yourself out there naked. You need to trust that there will be love and forgiveness to cover up your sin.
Now in our reading from Joel tonight, the people of God were at a breaking point. Their sin was so great that God is sending in an army (presumably this is the Babylonians though we’re not told exactly) that is going to wipe them out. But they’ve been under this sin for so long that they don’t trust that God would ever be able to forgive them now. It’s like they’re at the edge of this cliff with the Babylonians bearing down on them and all they have to do is jump off the cliff into the arms of the Lord but they don’t trust that God will catch them.
This is what God says to them. “Yet even now, return to me with all your heart.” “Jump off the cliff!” God says. I’m here to catch you. Rip open your heart before Me. I will give you a new heart and heal you. Literally, He says, “rend your hearts”. Rip ‘em open. Let Me in there.
“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” Look at all those words. If you’re going to rip open your heart before someone, this is the kind of person you want to do it before: gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love.
So tonight God is once again telling you to rip open your heart before Him. Just as He tells us to do in Joel chapter 2. Rend your heart open. We often let sin stink and fester in here because we’re scared that God won’t catch us when we jump. It’s like that wet towel that accidentally got stuck in the bottom of the laundry and when you open it up you about die from the smell. That’s our heart. We’re scared that it’s been too long and the sin is too great and He’s helped us one too many times.
But yet even now, He says. Even now, wherever you are right now, with whatever sin you’re carrying right now, return to the Lord your God tonight for He is gracious and merciful.
So I especially want to bring you to a familiar verse for us from 1 John chapter 1, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” First let me give you the context in 1 John. The whole first chapter is about how God has made everything clear. The disciples saw Jesus with their own eyes. John says that with God everything is light. No darkness. Nothing hidden.
But we sinners often prefer to stay in the darkness. We want to keep everything hidden beneath a veneer of, “How are you doing? I’m just fine. How are you?” But God is brilliant. His light is overpowering. It’s like a laser beam or an x-ray plunging into the depths of our heart and soul. Before God everything is brought to the light.
That means again that you’re going to have to trust Him. You have to trust Him that if everything comes out in the light He will still love you and accept you. So St. John says we sometimes lie and say that we don’t have any sin. “Nope, God, nothing to see here. I’m just fine. No big sins to worry about.”
But here’s the clinching verse of chapter 1. “If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar.” Yikes. Are you calling God a liar? In other words, God says you have sin in your heart. And if you try to deny it, then you’re calling Him a liar.
Yet if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. So trust Him. Think of it this way. If God didn’t think your sin was any big deal, then He never would’ve sent His own Son to suffer and die like He did. He knows your sin is big and stinky and ugly. He’s prepared for it. He’s prepared to catch you. He’s faithful and just. He will, without a doubt, forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Trust the Lord and confess your sin to Him. Confess it when you pray to Him. Confess it when you come to the Lord’s Supper here tonight and receive His body and blood. When you come up here to the rail, rend your heart open and let Him take your sin away and sew you back together.
God is faithful and just. God is faithful and just.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.