“ASH WEDNESDAY 2024”
Saint Matthew 6: 16-21
Ash Wednesday: 14 February Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
You have been already told on many previous Ash Wednesday’s, that Christ does not say “if” you fast but rather “when” you fast. How has that worked out? Do I think that if I preach your need as Christians to fast it will produce results—like when you been told to read Holy Scripture every day; to sing the Psalms; to be in daily prayer? No. Not really.
You do not fast because you do not want to fast. You can blame Rome, as many Lutherans blame Rome for why they do not want to wear ashes on Happy Wednesday—WAIT—I think it is actually called Ash Wednesday—but that is not the reason.
So many, by that I mean as Saint Paul says, everyone, sins because they want to sin. Their old natures do what is now hard-wired in all man because of the “Fall.”
Somehow the devil convinces all of us that to be “real” and “genuine” and “sincere,” we can not go through the exterior motions and rubrical actions, but have got to really “feel it” inside; interior faith.
Have you not read your Bibles? That is nonsense.
I have great concern for the sick. Why no, I’ve never prayed for them during the day or visited them. I have a real “heart” for the hungry children. Why no, I’ve never given any money or food to relief efforts. I really love my parents, children, and spouse. Nope—never once honored them and served them with action, physical affection, and self-sacrifice.
See how inane and silly that would be.
Yes, The Faith is the gift of belief that The Holy Spirit bestows by planting Jesus in your ears like He did to The Virgin. But as the Church has always taught (per Saint James) faith without works is dead. Or, as Paul would say—faith without works is not faith; even the demons “believe” and shudder.
But we don’t want to be hypocrites a Lutheran might squeal. Okay, don’t be Pharisees. Jesus does not want you to be hypocritical either. Don’t disfigure your face; but also stop frowning and whining and complaining all the time. Such “sad-sack” behavior is not fitting for the Redeemed.
So, this, is it a harangue, a scolding? It is not meant to be. It is a Pauline exhortation by way of God’s desire for you to “be what He has made you to be.” Parents often tell their children when they have grown out of the stages of pure will—“act your age.” Good advice. History, heroic history, is replete with calls to bravery; not just emotions but actions, “act like men.” In fact, Saint Paul says just that in Corinthians: “quit ye like men.”
And again, these words are probably not going to make you fast, give more monetary gifts to the Church, or pray more. But it is Lent. The Commands of Christ are still the Commands of Christ.
Jesus loves you. But how does He love you? His love is not just believing that He loves you, not just having the correct doctrine and Biblical knowledge about loving you—He actually did things with His voice and hands and activities to show it—to prove it. +
Jesus had His holy countenance, the very face of The God/Man, disfigured for you. He was smitten, stricken, and afflicted as Esaias writes. He had His head punched and His face slapped. The head pierced by a crown of thorns. A bloody forehead for you—not just ashes. His belly ached when He fasted for 40 days and ached even worse when He fasted for 6 hours on the cross. He had His outer raiment stripped away.
Jesus knows that you grumble and resist doing what He wills you to do—love God in action and love your neighbor in action. He knows you are like Jonah. You flee—but He walks the Lenten road to Calvary—straight to His Divine Destiny, and yours!
Like Jonah in the belly of a fish for three days, Jesus suffered death and burial in the deepness of the sacred sepulchre that you might never die the death of hell and damnation.
And when you grouse and complain that God has too much mercy on all the degenerates, whores, thieves, liars, murderers, gossips, and pagans, i.e., people like you Ninevites, Jesus still has His Word, Himself, Gospelled into their and your ears. He saves groups of people (even Jews like Saint Paul) far larger than the great populace of Ninevah. He is not the temporary gourd—with its palms shadowing the Prophet from the heat of the sun. Christ is the Tree of Life, His palms pierced and pinned to the Holy Wood, shielding you from the inferno of The Father’s wrath against sin. He is your protecting eagle’s wings, your mother hen (Churchly pasture with fences) gathering you as His chickens—His lambs.
Jesus had the moth and rust of crucifixion and death mar Him, so that you might tonight, and all nights, be His treasure—here, and hereafter in heaven.
It is Lent. It is Ash Wednesday. We head to Jerusalem. Not the city of David but the Church’s final destination at the Parousia. But we don’t head out alone. The Lord carries us and protects us always. So: “Quit ye like men!”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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