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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
The three appointed Readings for Ash Wednesday fit well our understanding of the Ash Wednesday Divine Service as a solemn assembly that begins a Lenten fast of returning to the Lord with broken and contrite hearts, hearts that also trust Him to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake, truly receive that reconciliation and righteousness from God, and then practice that righteousness by giving to the needy, praying, and fasting. Our Lord Jesus’s Gospel‑Reading condemnation of the hypocrites who disfigure their faces in order that their fasting may be seen by others (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21) should not be taken as prohibiting any and all uses of ashes in repentance, of course, for elsewhere we hear our Lord Jesus seemingly favorably refer to the use of ashes in repentance. Tonight we consider our “Repenting in sackcloth and ashes”, based on the following otherwise‑unheard passage from Matthew chapter 11 (confer Luke 10:13-15, also not included in the LSB Three-Year Series):
20 Then [Jesus] began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” (Matthew 11:20 – 24 ESV; confer John 12:37 on unbelief and Hebrews 9:13 on ashes.)
In the context of St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, the passage that I just read reveals that Jesus had been preaching and performing many miracles both in what is considered His hometown of Capernaum and in its neighboring cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida but, apparently despite crowds coming to hear Jesus, either the people’s hearts were not contrite over their sin, or they did not trust God to forgive their sin for Jesus’s sake—both of which sorrow and faith are included in the wider sense of “repentance” (confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 11:20-24, p.579). So, the people deserved Jesus’s denouncing them! And, Jesus denounced them in the fashion of an Old Testament oracle of doom (Davies and Alison, ad loc Matthew 11:20-24, p.265). In quite unflattering comparisons, Jesus compared mostly Jewish Chorazin and Bethsaida to the mostly Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon, and Jesus compared mostly Jewish Capernaum to mostly pagan Sodom, which along with the city of Gomorrah, was proverbial for its wickedness. The idea is that, while the Jews of Jesus’s day did not respond to His preaching and miracles as they should have responded, the notorious pagans of the Old Testament would have repented in sackcloth and ashes and so even prevented the destruction of Sodom (Davies and Alison, ad loc Matthew 11:21, p.267), as Nineveh and its king’s repentance in sackcloth and ashes prevented their destruction in the time of Jonah (Jonah 3:5-6). Jesus’s double examples of temporal and eternal judgment emphasize the need for us also to repent of how we react to the preaching both of Jesus and of those whom He sends (confer Matthew 10:13-15)!
From what St. Matthew reports, we cannot tell exactly whether the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum’s hearts were not contrite over their sin, or whether they did not trust God to forgive their sin for Jesus’s sake. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as any more‑modern “sin cities”, we can think of specific sins that the people there may not be contrite over (for example, Genesis 19:4-11), but the Jews in Jesus’s day may have wrongly thought that they could save themselves or that they would be saved simply by their association with Jesus. Most importantly, we should think of our own sin that we might not be truly sorry over and whether or not we trust God to save us only because of what Jesus has done for us. Humankind was made from dust (Genesis 2:7) and on account of sin will return to dust (Genesis 3:19). As we said in tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 51:1-19; antiphon: v.17), we are conceived and born sinful. By nature, we do not want to repent, and we do not want to rejoice and celebrate salvation by grace but rather salvation on some other basis. Like the first woman and the man in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-5), we may wrongly think that we will be exalted to heaven but may find ourselves brought down to hell. With the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s death and resurrection we arguably have more‑miraculous signs than the Jews of Jesus’s day to whom He refers, and we arguably have all that we will have before it is too late. All who fail to be sorry for their sin and to trust God to forgive their sin only for Jesus’s sake truly will be tormented for eternity in hell, but, like those in Jesus’s day, all those who have such unmistakable evidence bear greater responsibility for rejecting it, and so, if they fail to repent, they will suffer greater torment in hell (Pieper III:547, contrast 552-553; confer Stephenson, CLD XIII:122, with further reference to Luke 12:47-48, on which passage also confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 11:20-24, p.580 n.29).
Of course, Jesus does not want anyone to be tormented for eternity in hell, regardless of the degree of the torment. As Jesus by His warning was still calling and enabling the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum to repent, so Jesus by His warning is calling and enabling us to repent. Whether or not we cover ourselves in or sit on ashes that are commonly paired with and parallel to the dust from which humankind was created, whether or not we wear or sit on sackcloth, a rough cloth made of goat or camel hair, when, moved by the Holy Spirit, our hearts are sincerely sorry for our sin and trust God the Father to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, what those symbols of sackcloth and ashes should suggest, then God does forgive us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sin, whatever our sin might be.
Our confidence for our salvation in the day of judgment is not in ourselves but in Jesus Christ (1 John 4:17). Jesus is true God in human flesh, Who, out of God’s great love for even fallen humankind (Romans 5:8), died on the cross for us, in our place, and then rose from the grave. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, God made Him, Who knew no sin, to be sin, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10). The mighty works that Jesus did in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum revealed Him to be true God in human flesh, and those same mighty works anticipated His more‑miraculous signs of His death and resurrection and His giving us the benefits of His death and resurrection through His Means of Grace. Through His Word and Sacraments God forgives us, who may have not been as contrite as we should have been in the past, or who may have had confidence in ourselves for our salvation. When we come in sincere repentance, the Lord does not deal with us according to our sins or reward us according to our iniquities. As in today’s Old Testament Reading (Joel 2:12‑19), all are gathered together, including children, even nursing infants. Through His Word read and preached to groups such as this group, through His Gospel applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread that is the Body of Christ and wine that is the Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, He forgives our sins and so saves us and gives us eternal life.
Tonight we have considered “Repenting in sackcloth and ashes”. Unlike other people, we do not receive the grace of God in vain. God’s law continues to show us our sin, and God’s Gospel continues to lead us to trust God to forgive our sin and so be forgiven only for Jesus’s sake. Reconciled to God, we try each day, with contrition and faith, to drown our old sinful nature and all sins and evil desires so that a new redeemed nature daily emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Meanwhile, in this lifetime, we Christians are comforted as we share with our Lord Jesus Christ the ingratitude and disdain of those we serve on Christ’s behalf who do not repent (Luther, ad loc Matthew 11:20, AE 67:136). Ultimately, we, who are dust, return to dust, but only temporarily, for, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, for eternity we who are dust and bear the image of the man of dust also will bear the image of the Man of Heaven and be those who are of Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:47-49).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +