Sermon - February 6, 2008: Ash Wednesday

Pastor Heisley

“What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” 

The prophecy of Joel calls the people Israel to gather because there lives have been consumed by locusts. Whether the locusts were insects or an invading army, as some believe, doesn’t matter. Their lives were consumed and they were a people who were mocked because surrounding pagan nations now saw that their God was false. Or so they thought. Conquered. Defeated. 

But there was hope. Hope against all odds. God sent Joel to them, to call them together. “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly.” It was a fearsome time, a time when the sound of the shophar, the trumpet of the ancients, rang out across hilltops and through the valleys. A fearsome time calling the people together…Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord.’” Spare us. 

Spare US. And still the call goes out. Still the trumpet is heard in our hearts. We are here, called and gathered by the trumpeting voice of the Holy Spirit calling us to turn again, to turn in repentance, to see the locusts that would devour us and our lives and to turn to God, our only source of help. To turn, with joy. Maybe the last word of that sentence surprises you. To turn, with JOY. 

Ash Wednesday and all of Lent, in our culture, and too often in our practice, has been a deadly, scary time. We are morose and sad and full of fears and slog along because we think we have to, because we have been taught that that’s what good Christians do in this hour. 

I want to tell you a new thing. Lent is a time for us to engage in a communal fast that is joyful. Full of joy, full of hope, full of the light of Christ that we have seen shining so brightly during the Epiphany season, dazzled by the light of Christ transfigured on the mountaintop. Lent is a season of optimism. 

The ancient Jews heard Joel’s prophecy and they gathered. “Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. In response to his people the Lord said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.” So, there is not only hope, there is the promise that God will act as God has before, because if God is anything, God is faithful. 

Notice that Joel calls for an assembly of the people. He calls for people to gather, not simply to recall their personal sins, but to gather so that together they might turn again towards the loving kindness of almighty God. 

I had lunch with a member of Mount Olive last week who told me that Lent has always been a difficult time. Epiphany is good. Easter is good. Lent is difficult because it is so much a time of being reminded of one’s brokenness, one’s sinfulness, one’s desperate needs. I said that I believe Lent is something else. Lent is a time for us to gather together repeatedly to engage in the solemn fasting that is joyful, communal introspection. 

All of life exists in contrasts. We don’t know happiness without knowing sadness. We can’t know fulfillment without experiencing longing. We can’t be filled with hope without experiencing a sense of need. Lent is a time for us to experience these things as the Church, the assembly, together. Our worship becomes more introspective. Silence. Silence permits us to pray in our own ways and, ironically, together. The beauty of the cross is veiled so that when the great feast of salvation comes we can experience the contrast of seeing it symbolized in the cross, see it in a new way. 

At the end of last Sunday’s second liturgy we buried the most ecstatic word in our worship vocabulary. We will not utter it until we can once again shout it with renewed amazement at the work of God in our midst, for us, making this assembly, this solemn assembly, continually glad. We will return to our baptism. 

When we were baptized we were baptized into Jesus death and therefore into his resurrection. We were marked with the sign of the holy cross in oil on our foreheads. And the oil quickly was absorbed, becoming forever a part of us, just as baptism itself has changed our natures. We are now God’s people. A people marked with an indelible mark. It is that same mark that is marked on our foreheads today in ashes. Ashes for cleansing. Ashes in the shape of the cross. Ashes that remind us of our salvation in the midst of a sometimes dirty life. Ashes that teach us again about the love of God for us in the here and now. 


But we do not wear them with pride. We wear them with deep humility. It is God’s power that is overwhelming our lives with quiet, Lenten joy. It is God’s brilliant light that is drawing us through the darkness of our lives into the light of holy community, an assembly gathered in solemnity, gathered for deep worship and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Throughout this holy season know that you are marked, marked for life. Throughout this holy season know that your worship as part of the assembly doing the work of joyous fasting is coveted. Throughout this holy season look for the work of God in our life together, sanctifying our fast. Throughout this holy season know that in the quiet introspection that enfolds us, we are marked. Marked for great things. Marked for God’s future, with the powerful mark of the cross of Jesus, the Christ. 

He is Lord. 

Amen. 

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