Ash Wednesday

Since choir started this January I have been joking that, “Easter is in March people.” That is still true, but on a more serious note, if Easter is in March then today is Ash Wednesday. Many of you are very familiar with Ash Wednesday and Lent, but for a moment I am going to pretend that you are not.

What is Ash Wednesday? Google defines it as: The first day of Lent in the Western Christian Church, marked by services of penitence. Ash Wednesday services include wearing ashes, the ashes remind us that men are made from dust, and to dust men will return.

So then what is Lent? Well, Google says it is: the period preceding Easter that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness. In the Western Church it runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday and so includes forty weekdays.

So, do we or should we observe Ash Wednesday and or Lent?

Tim Suttle, the Pastor of Redemption Church in KC, recently wrote a blog post on Lent that states:

Lent is the forty days between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday excepting Sundays….For 40 days we embrace an intentional wilderness experience meant to help us to break out of the deadly patterns that keep us anesthetized and numbed to life. Traditionally Christians fast from something during Lent as a means of preparation for the celebration of Easter. Lenten fasts — giving up candy, coffee, soda, television, or meat on Fridays — are meant to help us see things in a new light. When we fast we voluntarily switch off the lights in our daily routines, hoping that in the self-induced darkness we might actually be able to see our way forward a little better. And if ever a people needed to turn out the lights and sit in the darkness for a while, it is the typical American Evangelical Christian.

Joel 2:15-17

2:15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly;
2:16 gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.
2:17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'”

We are called to fast. We are called to mourn. We are called to be repentant for our own sins and the sins of our nation. We are called to be counter cultural. Instead of claiming our sin with pride, instead of making excuses for our sin and the sin of our culture, we are called to admit we are wrong and broken. We are called to do so in order to show our faith lives and believes in accountability to a higher power.

Isaiah 58:4-8

58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.
58:5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Matthew 6:16-21

6:16 “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,
6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;
6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We are called to fast. Matthew 6:16 says “Whenever you fast” Not “If you are going to fast.” So if we are to follow the word of God, we will fast. Lent gives me the opportunity to fast in the very purposeful way of preparing my heart for the Easter Celebration. I am not here to tell you that I have my faith walk during this Lenten season all figured out. In fact, I feel like I missed the boat. Because of a bit of chaos in my life, I had not even considered Ash Wednesday or Lent until this past Sunday. That consideration was… “Woah, Paul is going to the Ash Wednesday service for the youth, I guess that means that Lent is next week.”

I hope that you all don’t feel as if you have missed the boat as I have. I hope that you heard my words not too long ago about Easter being in March, and that immediately set your soul to communing with God about what He would call you to do this Lenten season, but if not…

I will tell you what I have decided, my “metaphorical jet ski” out to the boat of Lent that is swiftly departing.

I will do less of something routine during lent. I will not fast from food or drink during lent because I have a tendency to get wrapped up in the materialistic benefit of “living healthier.” Instead, I will do less of something routine that takes my time. I will choose to fast from something that I enjoy, but that is not sinful. Suppose I enjoyed swearing. Fasting from swearing is not fasting. It is living as we are called to live on a daily basis. Fasting is disciplining our humanity to live to a higher standard. Beyond fasting from something that takes my time, I want to do something proactive. I want to fast like Isaiah 58. I want to loose the bonds of injustice; or let the oppressed go free; or share my bread with the hungry; or provide shelter to the homeless; or clothe people who are in need. I want to do these things because that is what Jesus did in the days before His death and resurrection.

I am going to take these days between Ash Wednesday and next Wednesday for the prayer and consideration that I should have committed to a week ago. I will pray for discernment of what God is calling me to give up, and how I will choose to fast like Isaiah 58.

Psalm 51:10-17

51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
51:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
51:13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
51:14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
51:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
51:16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
51:17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Close by singing “Create In Me A Clean Heart”

Categories: Jennifer Chlumsky Uncategorized

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