St John's Anglican Church

Ash Wednesday

I don’t need to say too much tonight because this service is much more about you and where you stand with the Lord than it is about your need to be taught or directed. Nevertheless a little bit of encouragement will surely be in order.

Tonight is all about stepping out in faith and humility on a road which – if followed diligently and intentionally – will lead you deep into the depths of who you really are and deep into the place where the Lord can meet with you and refresh you.

Lent is a period of gifted grace for us as Anglicans because if we embrace the period God’s grace will be poured out abundantly on the Lenten pilgrim.

Yet, Ash Wednesday is certainly the most uncomfortable day of the church year if we grab the opportunity sincerely.

The Psalmist says Ps 139:23-24

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Lent is an invitation to the Lord to search our hearts to the depths for healing, for our happiness – for our good.

So it is not a dreadful scrutiny but a scrutiny of love for, as the word tells us, he knows of what we are made AND he knows our potential through faith.

David, the Psalmist, is surely our example of how to go about this process. He certainly knew his sin!  It was obvious for all to see and he knew only too well that the Lord was well versed on his transgressions as well.

I keep on reminding you that the Message interpretation of the Bible is not a study Bible but only the text spoken in modern lingo. I have to ask you to listen to the way Eugene Peterson, the author of the Message,  re-interprets the text that we read together earlier from Psalm 51. This is where this paraphrase is just so enlightening and even challenging.

Psalm 51:3-12 (MsgB)

Generous in love—God, give grace!

Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.

2 Scrub away my guilt,

soak out my sins in your laundry.

3 I know how bad I’ve been;

my sins are staring me down.

4 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen

it all, seen the full extent of my evil.

You have all the facts before you;

whatever you decide about me is fair.

5 I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,

in the wrong since before I was born.

6 What you’re after is truth from the inside out.

Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

7 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,

scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.

8 Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,

set these once-broken bones to dancing.

9 Don’t look too close for blemishes,

give me a clean bill of health.

10 God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

11 Don’t throw me out with the trash,

or fail to breathe holiness in me.

12 Bring me back from gray exile,

put a fresh wind in my sails!

Is this the prayer of your heart this Lent?

Where on earth do we start?

With humility and repentance.

Dorothy Adams and I were chatting this morning and she was telling me about her time in Cairo where she had the privilege of teaching at a YWAM Discipleship Training Camp in Wadi to a group of matriculants and University students and she spoke about how that experienced humble her and brought her to her knees in humility over how far we, the children of God, drift from goodness of God.

It brought her to tears. She felt “cut to the heart” over our distance and offence to the goodness of God (Acts 2:37). As we reflected together we came to realize afresh that it is only when we have peeled off all the layers of sin and baggage that we have entangling us that we can be brought down through tears to humility that we can truly hear and respond to the living God. With no distance and no clutter between us.

Certainly the men and woman who march across the pages of Scripture were all well acquainted with the grace of tears.

The suffering servant song of Isaiah prophecy of Jesus that he would be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: Isa 53:3 Jesus showed that grief when he cried over the sin of the people of Jerusalem.

David says in Psalm 42 “My tears have been my food day and night” and when David considered the world in which we live he said “136 Streams of tears flow from my eyes,for your law is not obeyed. Ps 119:136

When last did you cry over the reality that you are a sinner. Remember that we are not sinners because we commit sinful acts, we commit sinful acts because we are sinners. When last did you look at our world and cry for the sin that percolates our society.

Lent gives you an opportunity to examine your own lives and to call on the Lord to meet you in your place of humility and brokenness and to lift you up and refresh you for the celebration of Easter.

Where do we begin? We begin with the Cross. Our Lent course is entitled “The Way of the Cross”

That was the example of Jesus. He took all our sin upon himself – what humility – he cried over our guilt. Then he walk the Way of the Cross and through that was highly exalted.

Philip. 2:8-10 (MsgB)

Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

9Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, 10so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ,

Turn away from me for a moment and look up at the cross behind me. That was the channel through which we have access to the Father heart of God. If you truly repent over this period and lead a new life then God will lift you up, refresh you and give you an experience of you life.

Let’s turn now to the altar – invitation – outward sign of your intention.