Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Lent begins with the words, “Remember, from dust you came and to dust you will return.” In the season itself, we pause for a moment to remember our very humanity and the mortality that defines us as mortals. We may spend a great deal of time and money on trying to fend off death, but in the end, the mortality rate remains 100%.

Each of the three writers above brings a different insight into mortality and humanity. The three lessons also serve to point up the radical difference in treatment from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Joel begins his treatment in talking about the Day of the Lord. In Old Testament terms, the Day of the Lord is not a good day. Joel describes a day of calamity and trouble. Joel describes the enemy encroaching upon the doorstep because God is angry. Joel pleads with the people, “Repent,” he says. Maybe God will change his mind and even leave good things behind in the wake of repentance.

Paul’s letter urges us, on the other, to be reconciled to God. The shift that takes place, however, is one based upon what God has already done. In reflecting upon Christ the transformation that takes place is that Christ, who knew no sin, “became sin,” so that we “we might become the righteousness of God.” I had a former seminary professor who called this the sweet swap. This is a plea to for reconciliation based upon the fact that Christ has already swapped places with us. Christ Jesus has taken upon himself the sinfulness of the human race and in so doing, made us to righteous before God.

This represents a radical shift. Both Old and New Testaments call for repentance and reconciliation; one to please God, but the other because it pleased God to reconcile us to himself through Jesus. It begs the age-old question, will we obey God to “change God’s mind,” or will we obey God, because has already loved us and made us his own, and out of love God, we will seek to obey? It makes all the difference in the world. Do we act out of fear or love?

Jesus through Matthew’s words points us to the very motives that lie beneath our actions. He points to the three pillars of the faith, fasting, prayer, and alms giving. These are outward acts that have displayed and right relationship with God through out the Biblical history. What is the motive for doing them? Jesus points out that even what we do “for God” can have a very twisted human “pay off,” however. We human can turn everything and anything to the wrong advantage. Are we in it to do God’s will, or are we in it to make a name for ourselves.

Our frailty and sinfulness is the context in which we live. During Lent, God is inviting us into the journey of discovery of all the intricacies of that our humanity and sinfulness, yet, with the twist of understanding that Christ has also brought us into close relationship with himself. We stand in his grace already. We now must learn to live within that grace.