Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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ASH WEDNESDAY

25 February Anno + Domini 2009

"Sacred Head, Now Wounded” Sermon Series

Part 1:  "A Wounded Savior for a Wounded People” (Joel 2:12-19)

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

We heard it at the start of today's liturgy:  Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.  The ashes for which this day is named show no one that you are fasting - for who knows if you are? - but they do show everyone that you are dying, and of that you and everyone else may be sure.  Dust we are, and to dust we shall return.  Such is the wages of sin.

But then we stare in amazement tonight at One for whom those words sound so wrong.  We see Him and cry out:  "O sacred Head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down, Now scornfully surrounded With thorns, Thine only crown!” (LSB 450:1).  If ever there was a head that did not call for the ashes of this day, it is His sacred head!  Why thorns, when it should be a golden diadem?  Here we see in our flesh the One who formed us from the dust at the first.  Here is the One who in unfathomable love for our fallen race became dust for us.  And now He will even lay down His head into the dust?  But there is no sin in Him!  In Him, there could be no death.  How and why will He die?  We will spend all this Lent, dear friends, pondering in awe such questions. 

When the prophet Joel declares a sacred fast, when he urges the trumpet to sound and the people to gather, we discover that the occasion is one of return.  Lent is always about a return to.  We so often think of it in terms of turning away from - what we are giving up, what we will fast from.  Make no mistake about it:  It is a good thing to fast; a fine spiritual exercise is that.  Did not our Lord assume that His disciples would do so when He said in tonight's Gospel:  "When you fast?”  When, not if!  But by itself, fasting, going hungry, can be nothing more than an empty religious exercise.  The Lenten fast, dear friends, goes deeper than your decision to deny yourself some tasty treat or a little food.  Rather, it invites, it summons, it urges you back to someone, to the Lord.  "Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster” (Joel 2:13).  A Lent that is anything less than a return in faith to the Lord is only a religious game and worth less than nothing. 

Rather than play games with God, hear, dear friends, in this sacred season His summons to you to come back to Him, to return to Him now.  He does not want some piece of you, some outward display, torn garments and such, a few minutes tossed His way on a Sunday, once a week.  No.  He wants you; He wants your heart.  Hence, the call goes forth, "Rend your hearts!”

"A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17), we're told.  A heart that is rent, torn open, is a heart that is wounded, damaged, broken.  Such a heart God receives from you as a pleasing sacrifice.  You are rending your hearts, when, from the depths of your being, you plead, "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!  I have made such a mess of it all.  I have hurt so many people and failed so often to show Your love, and You know how terrible my thoughts and how soiled my desires are with sin.  Have mercy on me, O Lord!  Have mercy!”

Lent is not for pretend sinners.  Lent is for real, honest-to-God sinners; honest-to-God sinners who have failed in their love of God, who have failed in their love of neighbor, who see this reality, and who by God's grace despise their sin and ache for His forgiveness and for strength to do better.  To such the invitation rings out as sheer refreshment:  "Even you, even now:  Return!”  Return, and see the sacred head of Your Savior now wounded.  This is the One we are summoned to return to.  He is the One who knew that we, on our own, could not come to Him, return to Him, find Him; so He came to us, returned to us, and found us. 

And we marvel this Lent at how far He went to find us.  For it is a marvel indeed that the God of Israel, Yahweh, should take on flesh and blood - as He did in the Incarnation.  That is enough to leave us astounded forever, or at least, it should be.  But He went further.  Not only did He take on our flesh and blood, not only did He become dust for us, but He also went so far as to lift off from us the burden of our sin, to bear it in His own body to death, to own all our failures to live in love as He has called us to do.  Indeed, in the words of St. Paul:  "He, who knew no sin,” became sin for us "so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  He not only died, but He also died as the greatest sinner of all time, with the sin of the whole world upon Him - all of it.  Yours.  Mine.  Everyone's - of all time!  Thus the Lord revealed that He is indeed merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  Look to the cross and see!  He bore your sin to death that neither death nor sin might be the end of you.  Such is the measure of His love. 

During Lent, dear friends, when the Church calls us to return, she is calling us to return to Christ, to draw near to this Savior who was wounded for our transgressions, this Savior who was bruised for our iniquity, this Savior upon whom was the punishment that brought us peace, this Savior in whose stripes we are healed.  She reminds us that the only real life in this whole world is fellowship with Him, communion with Him, and that every time we have settled for anything less, we have allowed ourselves to be deceived and cheated of the great gift of which Baptism made us heirs. 

Dear friends, as often as she sets the Table, the Church calls for all her children to return, to come to this wounded Savior who bore our wounds in His own flesh, spilling His blood for us, so that his flesh might be our living Bread from heaven and His Blood the blotting out of our every sin. 

Dust we are, and to dust we shall return, and so the ashes.  But the shape of the cross recalls that we have a Savior who became dust for us, whose sacred head was laid in the dust of death that the dust of our corrupted being might be rendered incorruptible in Him.  Is it any wonder that, pondering such love, the Church raises her voice to that sacred Head and joys to call it her very own, her greatest treasure? 

Rend your hearts.  Return to the Lord.  Receive the refreshment of forgiveness, life, and salvation from the One whose Sacred Head was wounded for you.  Lord, grant this unto us all!  In Jesus' Holy and Precious Name.  Amen.

Now the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting.  Amen.