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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.
Just months after the 500th anniversary of what is usually regarded as the start of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany, we do well to remember the first of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses: namely, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ [Matthew 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance” (American Edition, 31:25). Truly, we should live each day with sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake (Small Catechism, IV:12). Yet, as the season of Advent prepares us by repentance for our celebration of Christmas, so we set aside especially the season of Lent to prepare us by repentance for our celebration of Easter. To that end, in our midweek services this Lent, we consider eight of what I am calling “snapshots of repentance”, examples, in this case, from the Old Testament, of both repentance and forgiveness of sins, examples that are not only instructive but also comforting for us today. The first of these “snapshots of repentance” is from the prophet Joel.
Joel, the son of Pethuel, lived perhaps some nine-hundred years before the time of Christ, likely in the country of Judah, around its capital city of Jerusalem. Facing the threat of a massive plague of locusts, of wildfires, and of a severe drought—all of which, in their largely farm-based economy, would have led to desperation, starvation, and death—the Divinely‑inspired Joel, on the Lord’s behalf, called all the people to repent, in order that God might restore and bless them.
Joel declares the Lord’s own words: “Return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning”, and Joel repeats that message in his own inspired exposition of them: “Return to the Lord your God”. Return? Return from where? Return from what? Joel does not explicitly state the people’s specific sin! We know that Joel’s hearers at least at one time were the covenant people of God, so in at least some sense they were with the Lord their God, on the way of the righteous. But, then at some point, they strayed from the Lord their God, to the way of the wicked. By so doing, they moved from receiving the Lord’s blessings to at least potentially receiving His curses. And, one of those curses, for not obeying the voice of the Lord their God and for not being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes, was that locusts would consume their crops (Deuteronomy 28:15, 38).
You and I may not depend directly on crops for our livelihood, or right now immediately be threatened by wildfires or drought, but we certainly face other potential disasters and warfare. In the case of warfare, for example, in just the last 24 hours, I heard two rather frightening news stories: one about the constant cyber attacks against the United States, and the other about our country’s lack of real preparedness for a limited and so otherwise survivable nuclear attack. Certainly such potential disasters and threatened warfare, like the actual events, help serve God’s purposes of calling us to return to the Lord our God. That Joel does not explicitly state the people’s specific sin is said to invite each one of us to search our own hearts, minds, mouths and hands, for what God knows to be there (Allen, ad loc Joel 2:12, 79): namely, a sinful nature that leads to actual sins of thoughts, words, and deeds—any and all of which, apart from sorrow over the sin and trust in God to forgive the sin, kindle God’s wrath and rightly bring about our present and eternal death. So, in the holy fast of this Lenten season, in this solemn assembly of this Ash Wednesday Service, we all—from the oldest to the youngest, for no one is exempt, because no one is without sin—we all essentially publicly fast, weep, and mourn, not as a show hypocritically on the outside only, as Jesus describes in today’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21), but also on the inside, rending not only our garments but also our hearts, in order for the Lord to spare us.
Apparently between verses 17 and 18 of the Old Testament Reading, the people of Joel’s day did as they were called to do: they consecrated a fast and called a solemn assembly, gathered the people and consecrated the congregation. Then, as Joel describes the answer, the Lord zealously loved His land and had pity or compassion on and spared His people. We may not know for sure what present disasters our repentance might avert, but we do know for sure that our repentance averts the greatest and eternal disaster. Of course, our repentance is never the cause of our forgiveness, but rather the cause of our forgiveness is God’s nature: His being gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (confer Exodus 34:6-7). On this day that society celebrates as Valentine’s Day, we do well to remember that the greatest love is God Himself in the person of the man Jesus Christ’s laying down His life for us on the cross; that is true love, His sacrifice for our sins, so that we might live through Him (1 John 3:16; 4:9‑10). When we return to the Lord our God, in part reminding Him that the glory of His Name “requires” His looking upon us in mercy so that we may not be abandoned to the wiles of the enemy, then God forgives our sin for His Son Jesus’s sake.
Another notable detail of this “snapshot of repentance” in the Old Testament Reading are the priests’, the ministers of the Lord’s, being positioned between the presence of the Lord and the people, themselves weeping and interceding as I just described. The Lord God’s Office of the Holy Ministry—what tonight’s Epistle Reading leads to calling “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10)—this Ministry, like Joel did, calls the people to return to the Lord, intercedes for them, and declares the Lord’s answer to that intercession. In pastors’ reading and preaching of God’s Word, in Holy Baptism, in individual Absolution, and in the Lord’s Supper, God forgives the sin of the oldest to that of the youngest, your sin and my sin, and so He also grants us life and salvation. What started out as mourning is turned into dancing; our ashes of sorrow are transformed into the oil of joy (Psalm 30:11; Ecclesiastes 3:4)!
In both Joel’s call for the people to return to the Lord and in Joel’s answer from the Lord, grain, wine, and oil figure prominently as the richest of all temporal blessings (at least in a farm‑driven economy). The fruits of field, vineyard, and grove not only are the Lord’s blessings and the people’s resulting prosperity, but they also are the substance of the people’s offerings back to God, blessings not being used in a selfish spirit but for His glory, acknowledging Him as the Creator and Provider of all good things, and ultimately supporting the work of His ministers and His Church. Such are some of the fruits worthy of and in keeping with repentance, our returning to the Lord our God as He enables us to do, and the change of heart and life that follow. God’s grace and mercy are not a license to keep on sinning (Romans 6:1, 15), though we nevertheless will continue to sin, as long as our sinful nature still clings to us in this life, and so we do live each day with sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. And, forgive us, God does: of all our sin, whatever it may be.
We have not blown the trumpet, but we have consecrated a fast, a sign of humble repentance. We have called a solemn assembly, and we have gathered together around His Word and Sacrament this night in order to begin this Lenten season. Whether or not you received ashes, whether or not you outwardly fast (though it is certainly fine outward training [SC VI:10]), whether or not you outwardly weep or mourn, rend your hearts and bring forth the other fruits worthy of and in keeping with repentance. Then, not because of but following our return, the Lord our God sends us present and eternal blessings, and we are satisfied, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +