Sermon 14th February – Ash Wednesday
Text: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
– God’s Valentine Love
Around the world today many
people will be celebrating but most won’t be aware of the significance of what
today brings to Christians – Ash Wednesday. Today, being 14th February, many
people will be celebrating Valentines Day – the day when you express your love
for the significant person in your life. Today, for God, he too is doing
exactly that – expressing his love for the significant people in his life – you
and me – the children of God.
Today begins again our Lenten
journey where for the next 40 days we walk with Jesus to Calvary where he will
give up his life because of his love for us – For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him would perish but
receive eternal life. So God’s love is expressed for the purpose of
reconciliation. God created us because of his love and because of his love for
us God created us with a “free will”. A free will that enabled us to either
love God in return or to reject his love for us. But God wanted that love
returned to him freely. But because of sin that love was fractured. Not God’s
love for us – that never wavered. But our love was now challenged with
competing gods as Paul highlights in Romans chapter one: They exchanged the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than
the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
But God’s love for us never
ceased as Paul points out in the verse prior to our reading where he says: That
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins
against them. And so our reading tonight begins with Paul pleading to us: We
entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him
to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God.
So our Lenten journey is all
about a journey into reconciliation which begins with Ash Wednesday tonight and
ends on Easter Sunday when everything that has kept us apart from God is
defeated – namely sin, death and the devil. And as St Paul will state - I am
convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor
life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries
about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No
power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation
will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ash Wednesday commences the
journey of a new beginning – the beginning of a journey that leads us to the
joy and victory of Easter Sunday. But
let us also remember that the ashes, are a reminder of our mortality as Adam is
reminded in Genesis 3 – Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful
toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce
thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since
from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
But the ashes are also a
symbol of hope and redemption. They are
a call to embrace the love of God, who offers us a fresh start, a chance to be
renewed in Him and to be reconciled. Paul urges us to keep the reality of our
mortality ever before us.
We live in a generation where
people think they are invincible and don’t think about death. But Paul reminds
us of the reality of our mortality when he says: Now is the acceptable time;
now is the day of salvation! We don’t like to think about death – either our
own or our loved ones. But since the beginning of creation through disobedience
death is our reality. But thanks be to God who has given to us the victory over
death through Jesus’ death AND resurrection. And has given us the hope that he
is the resurrection and life and that whoever believes in him even though they
die they shall live.
So, as we leave and begin our
Lenten journey again this year, marked with the ashes in the sign of the cross
upon our foreheads, let us carry the hope of Ash Wednesday in our hearts. The
sign of the cross pointing us forward to the cross of Christ’s death for us and
also back to our Baptism where the sign of the cross was first made in the
waters of our baptism. May we be reminded daily of our mortality and the
urgency to live each day in the fullness of God's grace as TODAY is the day of
our salvation. May we be reminded of our reconciliation each day as we drown
our old self in the waters of baptism and rise renewed – reconciled in Christ. And
may the Lenten season be a time of reflection, repentance, and renewed
commitment to follow our Lord, Jesus Christ and be reconciled to God, who loved
us so much that He gave His son’s life for us.
Let us journey together
towards the resurrection, knowing that ultimately the ashes will lead us to
Easter Sunday, where we will rejoice in the victory of our risen Savior. Amen.
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