Ash Wednesday
Sermon
Experiencing Easter
The Lenten Journey of Death to Life
Object:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
-- Psalm 51
Experiencing Clean Hearts
Last summer, my family went to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, for our vacation. Our trip included all transfers, which was a great benefit because it was a 45-minute drive to the nearest airport -- Cancun.
We loaded onto the provided bus and let the children choose where to sit. They went to the back two rows. We then proceeded to the next resort to pick up other passengers also headed to the airport.
At the last resort, a particularly large group joined us. There were six adults and six to eight teenagers. They were spread out over the back half of the bus, taking up about four rows. It didn't take long to become annoyed by this group. They were loud as they yelled to each other so that the entire bus could hear. In fact, a family in the front seat later commented on this.
The loud group's conversations were sprinkled with profanities including using the name of Jesus in a non-prayerful way. They were lewd, rude, crude, and obnoxious. And it got worse as they all bought beer -- including several of the teenagers who weren't legal in the US, but were legal in Mexico, so they were taking full advantage of it.
The loudest and most offensive was a mother who sat directly in front of me. Completely oblivious to the fact that my sleeping eight-year-old daughter and I were behind her, she fully reclined her seat, nearly crushing my foot in the process.
We devised a plan to quickly grab our bags once at the airport and put as much distance as possible between us and the loud, large group. This was hindered when the loud lady in front of me didn't put her seat back up, but we still accomplished the goal -- kind of. Whereas most of the large group lingered while finding their luggage and smoking cigarettes, one couple went directly in the airport to the end of a lengthy line to check their luggage and receive their boarding passes -- placing them directly in front of my family.
When the rest of the group arrived, they tried to reunite with the rest of their family, but fortunately were turned away by security.
However, they were still closer than I wanted them to be. Even though we had about twenty people separating us, they could still be heard over everyone else in line.
After getting our boarding passes, we were finally able to get away from the group. That is until we took a shuttle from the airport to the airplane. We boarded the shuttle first, but within minutes the loud people joined us. Of all the available space, they chose to stand next to us. The loud lady who invaded my space on the bus now bumped into my wife without any kind of acknowledgment or apology.
We let them off first and watched as they climbed the steps into the plane. At the top of the stairs, one of the teenage boys stopped, turned around, and waved good-bye to Mexico. He seemed to expect Mexico to respond, "We'll miss you. How will we ever live without you?"
I turned to my wife and said, "They seem to think that the entire world revolves around them!"
In truth, don't we all at times? Don't we sometimes get too full of ourselves and feel like we're "it"? Well, Ash Wednesday comes around to remind us that we are not. Instead, we are dust. Instead of being everything, we are nothing.
King David felt like he was everything, and why not? He has been called "a man after God's own heart." He was the king of Israel during the time of its greatest achievements. He was a poet laureate. He seemed to have everything and be everything.
Yet 2 Samuel, chapter 11, tells how David failed. He had an affair with Bathsheba and then succeeded in a plot to kill her husband after discovering she was pregnant. This was more than being lewd, rude, and crude on a bus -- more than taking cuts in line at the airport. David broke half of the Ten Commandments. He coveted. He committed adultery. He murdered.
Second Samuel 11 also tells us that he was discovered. The prophet Nathan came to him and told an allegory to reveal David's sin. Even though David thought he was untouchable as the king of Israel, he was dust. His sin would separate him from God and lead to his death. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
So how did David respond? He owned up to his actions. You get the feeling his sin haunted him, similar to the main character in Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. In the story, the nameless narrator had committed murder and buried the dismembered body of his elderly victim beneath three planks of his floor.
He was poised to get away with his crime even as the police came to investigate. The murderer is unable to escape the haunting guilt of his deed. He began to hear the heartbeat of his dead victim. A cold sweat poured over him as the heartbeat relentlessly went on and on, getting louder and louder until the murderer confessed to his crime and showed the police the body.
Poe's point was that it was not the pounding heart of his victim that drove the man mad. Instead, it was pounding within his own chest. Even if he had committed the perfect murder, his guilt was too much to overcome. He was dust.
David's guilt drove him to a confession of sorts, but instead of going mad, he wrote poetic thoughts that we now know as Psalm 51. The rubrics of the psalm explain: "To the leader. A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba."
Psalm 51 is a prayer of pain. It is a prayer of failure as David uses terms like "transgressions," "iniquity," "guilty," "sinner," and "sin." When Nathan called David on his sin, he looked into his heart and didn't like what he saw. Who can blame him? When we look into our own hearts, are we comfortable with what we see?
A modern parable by an unknown author tells of six people gathered around a dying campfire on a dark and bitter night. Each one has a stick that could be placed on the fire. Sadly, one by one, they decide not to give what they have to keep the fire going.
The lone woman does not give because there is a black man in the circle. A penniless vagabond does not give because there is a member of the idle rich within the group. The rich man does not give because he reasons his contribution would obviously help someone who was lazy and shiftless. Another didn't give because one of the six didn't belong to his church. The black man hung tight to his wood, because it was his way of getting back at all the "whities." Still another would not give because he believed in giving only to those who also gave.
The parable ends with these words: "Six logs held fast in death's hand was proof of human sin, the sin of pride, ego, and selfishness. They didn't die from the cold of that night, the cold without; they died from the cold within each heart."
David knew his heart was not right. It was cold. It was selfish. He was living as if he was the only person that mattered. So he sought to change that about himself.
Psalm 51 is also a prayer of seeking God. David wrote, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love." He said, "Wash me" and "cleanse me" before uttering perhaps the most famous words of the psalm: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me."
Not only does David confess his sin, but he also seeks to be cleansed of the very sin to which he confesses. Ash Wednesday is all about seeking a clean heart. Notice that David didn't say, "Change my behavior." He said, "Change my heart." He wants God to create him as a new person.
In 1992, professors Gloria Clayton and Leonard Poon published the results of an intensive study of centenarians -- people who live to 100 years old, or more. One of the men they studied was Jesse Champion, 102 years old, who was active in his local church. In his interview, Mr. Champion said, "I know I've been born again." Then he added, "My hands look new. My feet look new. Yeah, he changed my heart. I had a hard heart, but he changed it."1
Can you imagine having a new heart at the age of 100? Yet, he felt his heart changed. This is what David was seeking from God. He wanted his heart changed. He wanted a clean heart. He wanted the sin that would lead to death to be out.
The verb "create" in verse 10 is bara in Hebrew and is used in the Old Testament only in context of what God does: such as in the creation stories of Genesis. David recognized God's fundamental character to restore, rehabilitate, and re-create sinners. David's life depended on God's willingness to forgive and to re-create sinners. So he called upon God to permeate his heart.
Ash Wednesday requires us to make the same request. It asks the question, "Have you let God penetrate your heart so that you can be re-created?"
In the movie Godfather III, Mafia boss, Michael Corleone, meets with Cardinal Lamberto and reports to the cardinal that executives from the Vatican bank and even an archbishop have been involved in a massive case of fraud. Upon hearing this news, Cardinal Lamberto moves to a water fountain, withdraws a stone, and says, "Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it."
He breaks the stone in two, shows the inside to the Mafia boss, and continues, "Look. Perfectly dry. The same thing has happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated. Christ doesn't breathe within them."
Does Christ breathe within you? Lent is a journey to Easter -- a journey to the resurrected Christ. That journey goes through the cross of Christ. Christ died so that we would not be condemned to dust -- so that he could penetrate our cold, sinful, hardened hearts.
When the cross of ash is placed on our foreheads, it reminds us of two things: First, the ash reminds us who we are. We are dust. We are sinners with a death sentence. The world doesn't revolve around us. We are nothing.
However, even though the ash reminds us who we are, the cross reminds us whose we are. We belong to Christ. God through Christ provided a way for our hearts to be cleansed. God's Son, Jesus the Christ, was the embodiment of grace. In Christ, God clearly showed the willingness to rehabilitate the hearts of sinners.
In the story of David and Bathsheba, David's sinfulness does not have the last word. God's grace does. Sure, David's sin had serious consequences as his child born to Bathsheba died, and his family nearly fell apart, but David's sin was forgiven. He was allowed to live and to remain king.
As we begin our journey of experiencing Easter, let us honestly look at our hearts and acknowledge the dust that we are. Then, let us seek grace. May we allow God to cleanse us -- to create a new and right spirit in our hearts. Amen.
____________
1. Hugh Downs, Fifty to Forever (Nashville: T. N. Publishers, 1994), p. 65.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
-- Psalm 51
Experiencing Clean Hearts
Last summer, my family went to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, for our vacation. Our trip included all transfers, which was a great benefit because it was a 45-minute drive to the nearest airport -- Cancun.
We loaded onto the provided bus and let the children choose where to sit. They went to the back two rows. We then proceeded to the next resort to pick up other passengers also headed to the airport.
At the last resort, a particularly large group joined us. There were six adults and six to eight teenagers. They were spread out over the back half of the bus, taking up about four rows. It didn't take long to become annoyed by this group. They were loud as they yelled to each other so that the entire bus could hear. In fact, a family in the front seat later commented on this.
The loud group's conversations were sprinkled with profanities including using the name of Jesus in a non-prayerful way. They were lewd, rude, crude, and obnoxious. And it got worse as they all bought beer -- including several of the teenagers who weren't legal in the US, but were legal in Mexico, so they were taking full advantage of it.
The loudest and most offensive was a mother who sat directly in front of me. Completely oblivious to the fact that my sleeping eight-year-old daughter and I were behind her, she fully reclined her seat, nearly crushing my foot in the process.
We devised a plan to quickly grab our bags once at the airport and put as much distance as possible between us and the loud, large group. This was hindered when the loud lady in front of me didn't put her seat back up, but we still accomplished the goal -- kind of. Whereas most of the large group lingered while finding their luggage and smoking cigarettes, one couple went directly in the airport to the end of a lengthy line to check their luggage and receive their boarding passes -- placing them directly in front of my family.
When the rest of the group arrived, they tried to reunite with the rest of their family, but fortunately were turned away by security.
However, they were still closer than I wanted them to be. Even though we had about twenty people separating us, they could still be heard over everyone else in line.
After getting our boarding passes, we were finally able to get away from the group. That is until we took a shuttle from the airport to the airplane. We boarded the shuttle first, but within minutes the loud people joined us. Of all the available space, they chose to stand next to us. The loud lady who invaded my space on the bus now bumped into my wife without any kind of acknowledgment or apology.
We let them off first and watched as they climbed the steps into the plane. At the top of the stairs, one of the teenage boys stopped, turned around, and waved good-bye to Mexico. He seemed to expect Mexico to respond, "We'll miss you. How will we ever live without you?"
I turned to my wife and said, "They seem to think that the entire world revolves around them!"
In truth, don't we all at times? Don't we sometimes get too full of ourselves and feel like we're "it"? Well, Ash Wednesday comes around to remind us that we are not. Instead, we are dust. Instead of being everything, we are nothing.
King David felt like he was everything, and why not? He has been called "a man after God's own heart." He was the king of Israel during the time of its greatest achievements. He was a poet laureate. He seemed to have everything and be everything.
Yet 2 Samuel, chapter 11, tells how David failed. He had an affair with Bathsheba and then succeeded in a plot to kill her husband after discovering she was pregnant. This was more than being lewd, rude, and crude on a bus -- more than taking cuts in line at the airport. David broke half of the Ten Commandments. He coveted. He committed adultery. He murdered.
Second Samuel 11 also tells us that he was discovered. The prophet Nathan came to him and told an allegory to reveal David's sin. Even though David thought he was untouchable as the king of Israel, he was dust. His sin would separate him from God and lead to his death. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
So how did David respond? He owned up to his actions. You get the feeling his sin haunted him, similar to the main character in Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. In the story, the nameless narrator had committed murder and buried the dismembered body of his elderly victim beneath three planks of his floor.
He was poised to get away with his crime even as the police came to investigate. The murderer is unable to escape the haunting guilt of his deed. He began to hear the heartbeat of his dead victim. A cold sweat poured over him as the heartbeat relentlessly went on and on, getting louder and louder until the murderer confessed to his crime and showed the police the body.
Poe's point was that it was not the pounding heart of his victim that drove the man mad. Instead, it was pounding within his own chest. Even if he had committed the perfect murder, his guilt was too much to overcome. He was dust.
David's guilt drove him to a confession of sorts, but instead of going mad, he wrote poetic thoughts that we now know as Psalm 51. The rubrics of the psalm explain: "To the leader. A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba."
Psalm 51 is a prayer of pain. It is a prayer of failure as David uses terms like "transgressions," "iniquity," "guilty," "sinner," and "sin." When Nathan called David on his sin, he looked into his heart and didn't like what he saw. Who can blame him? When we look into our own hearts, are we comfortable with what we see?
A modern parable by an unknown author tells of six people gathered around a dying campfire on a dark and bitter night. Each one has a stick that could be placed on the fire. Sadly, one by one, they decide not to give what they have to keep the fire going.
The lone woman does not give because there is a black man in the circle. A penniless vagabond does not give because there is a member of the idle rich within the group. The rich man does not give because he reasons his contribution would obviously help someone who was lazy and shiftless. Another didn't give because one of the six didn't belong to his church. The black man hung tight to his wood, because it was his way of getting back at all the "whities." Still another would not give because he believed in giving only to those who also gave.
The parable ends with these words: "Six logs held fast in death's hand was proof of human sin, the sin of pride, ego, and selfishness. They didn't die from the cold of that night, the cold without; they died from the cold within each heart."
David knew his heart was not right. It was cold. It was selfish. He was living as if he was the only person that mattered. So he sought to change that about himself.
Psalm 51 is also a prayer of seeking God. David wrote, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love." He said, "Wash me" and "cleanse me" before uttering perhaps the most famous words of the psalm: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me."
Not only does David confess his sin, but he also seeks to be cleansed of the very sin to which he confesses. Ash Wednesday is all about seeking a clean heart. Notice that David didn't say, "Change my behavior." He said, "Change my heart." He wants God to create him as a new person.
In 1992, professors Gloria Clayton and Leonard Poon published the results of an intensive study of centenarians -- people who live to 100 years old, or more. One of the men they studied was Jesse Champion, 102 years old, who was active in his local church. In his interview, Mr. Champion said, "I know I've been born again." Then he added, "My hands look new. My feet look new. Yeah, he changed my heart. I had a hard heart, but he changed it."1
Can you imagine having a new heart at the age of 100? Yet, he felt his heart changed. This is what David was seeking from God. He wanted his heart changed. He wanted a clean heart. He wanted the sin that would lead to death to be out.
The verb "create" in verse 10 is bara in Hebrew and is used in the Old Testament only in context of what God does: such as in the creation stories of Genesis. David recognized God's fundamental character to restore, rehabilitate, and re-create sinners. David's life depended on God's willingness to forgive and to re-create sinners. So he called upon God to permeate his heart.
Ash Wednesday requires us to make the same request. It asks the question, "Have you let God penetrate your heart so that you can be re-created?"
In the movie Godfather III, Mafia boss, Michael Corleone, meets with Cardinal Lamberto and reports to the cardinal that executives from the Vatican bank and even an archbishop have been involved in a massive case of fraud. Upon hearing this news, Cardinal Lamberto moves to a water fountain, withdraws a stone, and says, "Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it."
He breaks the stone in two, shows the inside to the Mafia boss, and continues, "Look. Perfectly dry. The same thing has happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated. Christ doesn't breathe within them."
Does Christ breathe within you? Lent is a journey to Easter -- a journey to the resurrected Christ. That journey goes through the cross of Christ. Christ died so that we would not be condemned to dust -- so that he could penetrate our cold, sinful, hardened hearts.
When the cross of ash is placed on our foreheads, it reminds us of two things: First, the ash reminds us who we are. We are dust. We are sinners with a death sentence. The world doesn't revolve around us. We are nothing.
However, even though the ash reminds us who we are, the cross reminds us whose we are. We belong to Christ. God through Christ provided a way for our hearts to be cleansed. God's Son, Jesus the Christ, was the embodiment of grace. In Christ, God clearly showed the willingness to rehabilitate the hearts of sinners.
In the story of David and Bathsheba, David's sinfulness does not have the last word. God's grace does. Sure, David's sin had serious consequences as his child born to Bathsheba died, and his family nearly fell apart, but David's sin was forgiven. He was allowed to live and to remain king.
As we begin our journey of experiencing Easter, let us honestly look at our hearts and acknowledge the dust that we are. Then, let us seek grace. May we allow God to cleanse us -- to create a new and right spirit in our hearts. Amen.
____________
1. Hugh Downs, Fifty to Forever (Nashville: T. N. Publishers, 1994), p. 65.
