In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our meditation for Ash Wednesday is
based upon the Old Testament Reading from Joel: “‘Yet even now,’ declares the
Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning’ . . . Return to the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and merciful.”
Most newspapers have a movie reviewer
and a restaurant reviewer. The
“Cleveland Plain Dealer” is the only newspaper in the country to have a church
reviewer. He visits a different church
each week and then writes a review about his worship experience there.
Some years ago, the “Plain Dealer’s”
church reviewer visited a congregation of our Synod in a Cleveland suburb. He gave it a four-star, thumbs-up rating.
What struck him most, and struck him deeply, was the opening words in the
Confession of Sins: “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my
sins.”
He said it was a bit shocking, because
in all the churches that he visits, most of them don’t talk much about sin
anymore. But, he also found it
refreshing, to have a whole congregation of nice-looking, well-dressed,
middle-class people, proclaiming to one another that they are in fact “poor,
miserable sinners.” He said he liked
having that stark confession at the beginning of the service, because it really
lets you know WHY you are there: you are a poor, miserable sinner, in need of a
Savior.
And that is why WE are here this Ash
Wednesday: because we are all poor, miserable sinners, in need of a
Savior. Nice-looking, well-dressed,
middle-class, but, nevertheless, poor, miserable sinners, in need of a Savior. “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return
to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning’ . .
. Return to the Lord your God, for he is
gracious and merciful.”
Ash Wednesday sets the tone for the
rest of Lententide, and in the same way each week the Confession of Sins and
Absolution at the beginning of our worship sets the tone for the rest of the
Divine Service. Ash Wednesday tells us
what the season of Lent is all about, and the Confession of Sins and Absolution
at the beginning of the Divine Service tells us what our worship is all about,
WHY we are gathered here.
We are not here to be entertained by a
flashy show. We are not here for a
self-help lecture. We are not here for a
massive group therapy session with the preacher playing psychologist.
We gather in this house of God because
we have a fatal spiritual sickness, and we are seeking the cure from the
Physician of souls. We gather in this
house of God because here we find something we can’t get from the flashy world of
entertainment. Here we find something we
can’t get from self-help gurus. Here we
find something we can’t get even from psychology. St. Paul describes it as, “The PEACE of God
which surpasses all understanding.”
The Confession of Sins at the beginning
of the Divine Service is a declaration that we are here because we are poor,
miserable sinners, seeking that peace of God, which comes only from God’s gift
of forgiveness, salvation, eternal life.
“We poor sinners confess unto you that we are by nature sinful and
unclean, and that we have sinned against you by thought, word, and deed.
Wherefore we flee for refuge to your infinite mercy, seeking and imploring your
grace for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord,
‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning’ . . . Return to the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and merciful.”
God answers our Confession of Sins with
the comforting, Good News of the Absolution:
“[I] announce the grace of God unto all of you, and in the stead and by
the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins, in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Does the minister really have such
power, to actually forgive sins in Jesus’ name?
When Jesus first appeared to his disciples after his resurrection he
told them, “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I am sending
you.’ And with that he breathed on them
and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If
you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven them.’”
So, it is not just pretend or symbolic
when Christ’s ministers proclaim, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord
Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.”
As Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism: “[It] is as valid and
certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us himself. .
. we receive Absolution, that is,
forgiveness, from the pastor as from God himself, not doubting, but firmly
believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.”
“I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto
you . . .” That tells us what this
season of Lententide, and the Divine Service each week, is all about—WHY we are
gathered here. Not for flashy
entertainment, or a self-help lecture, or playing psychology, but to receive
“the peace of God which surpasses all understanding,” the Good News of God’s
Holy Absolution.
“‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord,
‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning’ . . . Return to the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and merciful.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment