Sermon for the second mid-week Lent service: Table of Duties - Of Civil Government and Of Citizens

 

Mid-Lent 2

                                                                                      Table of Duties:

Of Civil Government;

Of Citizens

                                                                                                3/4/26

 

            Can a Christian be a soldier? At the time of the Reformation, those who were called Anabaptists said that, no, I Christian can’t serve in this role because it involves killing other people.  In response, Martin Luther described how God’s rule takes place in two different but complimentary ways.

            God’s right hand rule occurs through the Gospel. It takes place through the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Church is the means by which God carries out this work that gives forgiveness and eternal life. There is no force or threat involved here. Luther objected to all attempts that would coerce people into the Christian faith.

            God’s left hand rule occurs through the law. The government is the means by which God carries out this work that retrains sin and wrongdoing. This has nothing to do with the Gospel, for here force is the means that compels all who would disobey.  Luther emphasized that this left hand rule was God at work, and so Christians can and should serve in positions like being a soldier.

            Last week we heard about Pastors and Hearers. These were all vocations that were directly tied to the Gospel. Tonight, we take up “Of Civil Government” and “Of Citizens.” These by contract have nothing to do with the Gospel. But they do involve the work of God. These topics are very straightforward.  But they also confront us with challenging questions – questions that the Christian faith answers in ways that are different from the world.

            The Small Catechism’s Table of Duties provides only one verse for the topic “Of Civil Government.”  And to be honest it is really all that we need.  In Romans 13 Paul says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”  Paul says in a straightforward manner that governing authorities have been instituted by God – he is the One who has provided them.  Since God put them there, to resist the governing authorities – the civil government – is to resist God.

            The role of the government is very simple: it is to restrain wrongdoing and maintain order. Paul goes on to add: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.”  Paul can even describe the government as “God’s servant.”

            Civil government exists because of one reason: sin.  It is the means God has established to restrain and control evil. To understand how crucial this is, consider what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or what we have seen recently in Los Angeles and Minneapolis when crowds did not feel constrained by police.  The veneer of civilization is a very thin one indeed. 

When given a chance, sinners will do terrible things. That is why God established governing authorities.  As Peter says in the verse included under “Of Citizens”: “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”

In our present setting it is important to recognize that the Christian Church has always understood that it is the role of the government to protect its citizens by controlling the borders of a nation. It establishes laws about entry, and enforces those laws.  There will, of course, be immigration and decisions about allowing entrance will seek to balance the resources and well being of the nation with concern for the outsider. But we must recognize that when government agents such as ICE enforce the law in the proper manner, they are the instruments of God’s left hand rule.

            The government is God’s servant.  The irony is that it plays this role, even when the government itself rejects the idea of God; even when individuals in the government do not believe there is a god.  Remember, Paul wrote these words when the government was the Roman Empire and the leader was the emperor Nero. 

And by the same token, since the government functions in this way, it is easy to understand why it is entirely a God pleasing thing for Christians to serve in the government, in the police, as corrections officers, and in the armed forces. These are important vocations which carry out God’s work.  With good reason Luther included good government among the blessings listed under “daily bread” – life without a functioning government is a frightening thing. Think of the disorder in a place like Haiti.

            Nothing is free, and so government and what it does, costs money.  From ancient times, governments have raised money through taxes. The Roman world was no different and so Paul went on to say in Romans 13: “Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”  Paul told Christians to obey the authorities God had placed over them, and to do so by paying taxes.  In saying this, he was repeating Jesus’ own teaching when he said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

            Civil government is a great blessing from God.  It carries out a challenging job as it restrains sin.  And so Paul said in 1 Timothy 2 that Christians are to pray for their leaders and government as he wrote: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.”  When you were baptized, you became part of the royal priesthood of God’s people. And part of your priestly service is prayer. Certainly we do this together in the Divine Service each week.  But prayer for our government and leaders needs to be part of your daily life as well.

            As we think about Paul’s words regarding civil government, we see that in the apostle’s death we learn something that we must consider as well.  Paul probably wrote the words of Romans 13 during the first five years of Emperor Nero’s rule.  They were good years as he was guided by his teacher, the Stoic philosopher Seneca. However, as an unstable individual, Nero eventually turned on Seneca and forced him to commit suicide.  Nero’s rule soon descended into madness and injustice. Before it was done he was having Christians burned as torches at night. Paul himself was martyred.

            Civil government itself can be warped by sin into something that does wrong.  It can become something that commands things that are contrary to God’s will.  When this happens, the apostles were clear as to how Christians respond when they said, “We must obey God rather than man.”

            When this happens, we are called to suffer. True, we work as citizens in our form of government to bring about change.  But where this does not succeed, we are willing to suffer for what is true according to God’s will.  In the same chapter of 1 Peter in which the verse in the Table of Duties is found, Peter goes on to say to slaves: “But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

            Our Lord Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead in order to win for us forgiveness and eternal life. But Peter describes how his death does something else. Jesus’ suffering provides a model for us by which he teaches us to entrust ourselves to God.  Now this is not a model that we want. We don’t want to experience injustice.  We don’t want to be wronged and harmed. But Jesus is also the reason that we are able to do this. The Holy Spirit who created faith in Jesus also enables us to walk in faith.  Christ’s death and resurrection for us is the reason that we know we can trust God in the midst of any circumstance. God the Father has revealed his love and care in the death and resurrection of his Son. And therefore we are able to trust him in the midst of all challenges.

            Civil government is a great blessing from God.  It restrains sin and allows us to live in peace.  Our vocation as citizens is to obey the government, pay our taxes, and pray for those who govern us.  Yet when the government acts unjustly, or when it commands things that violate God’s will, we are called to follow our Lord in entrusting ourselves to God in the midst of suffering when he allows it.  We do this knowing that, just as for our Lord, this way leads to life and resurrection for us.

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent - Mt 15:21-28

 

   Lent 2

                                                                                                            Mt 15:21-28

                                                                                                            3/1/26

 

           

At our house Amy turns in to go to bed earlier than I do.  So on most nights I will go upstairs to our bedroom to say goodnight to her and see if there is anything we need to talk about for the next day.  When I walk into the room, I am always greeted by the sight of our little white dog Noel, and our golden retriever Luther there on the bed with her. Sometimes there is the trifecta as our cat Martin has also decided to join the party.

In our house the dogs are a beloved part of our family life.  And here in the United States there is nothing unusual about that. I am sure that many of you feel the same as well. However, in other cultures things are very different. For Islam dogs are considered haram – forbidden. They fall into a spiritual category in which they are considered to be sinful and must be avoided. This leads Muslims to carry out acts of brutality against dogs in killing them.

Dogs in Jesus’ world seem to have held a position that was somewhere in between these two poles. They probably weren’t sleeping on the same bed like part of the family. They were after all, dogs. But as our text describes they were also present in the house, and under the table, ready to eat anything that fell to the floor.

Our Gospel lesson begins by saying, “And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.” Jesus goes away because he has just been in conflict with the Pharisees and scribes who had come from Jerusalem looking for a fight.  They had asked, ““Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” These religious leaders attacked Jesus because he and his disciples weren’t living according to the rules that the Pharisees had added on top of the Torah itself – the rules they described as “the tradition of the elders.”

Our Lord responded to them sharply as he condemned the manner in which they were creating commandments that were not from God. He said, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

After this had finished, our text describes how Jesus withdrew from Galilee as he went north along the Mediterranean Sea into the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is a regular pattern in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has said that he is going to suffer, die, and rise from the dead. He is carrying out the Father’s will, and it is going to happen according to the Father’s timing. Nothing will be allowed to preempt this. In the face of conflict with the religious leaders, Jesus withdraws until the time is right for their hatred and anger to cause his death.

Tyre and Sidon were pagan country. It had been the home of the Baal worshipping queen Jezebel in the days of Elijah. Matthew emphasizes this point by describing the woman who came to Jesus as a “Canaanite.”  This was an anachronistic term from the past. It would be like calling someone from Alabama as “secessionist” or “a rebel.”  But the label “Canaanite” resonated with ancient pagan past of that area.

Matthew has identified this woman in way that leads us to view her as just another pagan who doesn’t believe in the true God. For this reason, the first words out of her mouth are surprising.  We learn, “And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’”

Her first words were, “Have mercy on me, O Lord.” These are the same words that we just used in the Kyrie of the liturgy as we said, “Lord, have mercy.” They are a cry for help. But the remarkable thing is that the woman addresses Jesus as “Lord.” In Matthew’s Gospel only people who have faith in Jesus use this word to address him.

Even more striking is the fact that she calls Jesus “Son of David.” Matthew’s Gospel has made it clear that Jesus is the descendant of King David who fulfills God’s promise of the Messiah. But we don’t expect a Canaanite woman to confess that Jesus is the One promised to Israel by God. 

The woman came to Jesus with the language of faith on her lips. And this included her plea for help as she asked Jesus to rescue her daughter from demon possession.  How had she heard about Jesus? We don’t know. The Gospels emphasize how crowds came from far and wide to hear Jesus. Word about Jesus had been carried north into this region, and the woman believed that Christ could help her daughter.

With the language of faith, the woman had appealed to Jesus to help. And what was Jesus response? He didn’t answer her at all. He was silent.

The silence of God is something his people experience.  We encounter hardships and difficulties, and ask for God’s help. Yet none arrives. Or things even get worse. We find this experience expressed in the Psalms such as when David says, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

In response to this, our Lord teaches that faith continues to call out to God. It continues to ask him for help.  It believes and trusts that God is the loving and caring God he has revealed himself to be in his word. And so it keeps calling out to him.

Jesus taught that we should always pray and not lose heart in the parable of the persistent widow. There an unjust judge would not give justice to the woman.  But she kept coming to him again and again and again. Finally he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.” Our Lord teaches us to continue to come to God in persistent prayer because that is the approach of faith.

Jesus had been silent. But the woman continued, persistent in crying out to Jesus for help.  We know this because the disciples got tired of hearing her. They approached Jesus and begged him saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.”  They asked Jesus to give her what she wanted so that she would just go away.

But Christ answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  He refused to do anything because he said he wasn’t there for her. These words are probably surprising to our ears. Yet they are a reminder that as the Son of David, Jesus was Israel’s Messiah.  When Jesus sent out the apostles to heal and proclaim the reign of God that was present in Jesus he said, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” It is a reminder that as Gentiles we are the wild olive branches that have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree that descends from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jesus had said that he wasn’t there for her. But the woman did not cease to press on in faith. She approached Christ and knelt before him saying, “Lord, help me.”  Surely, Jesus would finally grant her request. But instead he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” He called her a dog who was not worthy of what he had to offer.

But the woman was not deterred by this. She replied, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” The woman granted that she was not descended from Israel. She didn’t dispute the fact. But she asserted that Jesus had so much to offer that even the crumbs – even the leftovers of his saving work – were sufficient to save her daughter.

The woman had not been turned away. Her faith had been persistent as she kept pressing on into Jesus with her entreaty. Then Jesus answered, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And we learn that her daughter was healed instantly.

In our Gospel lesson today we do not find the Jesus that we expect. He is unresponsive to the woman as first he doesn’t answer her; then he says that he isn’t there for her; and finally, he calls her a dog. But we see that at the end of the our text he heals the woman’s daughter by freeing her from demon oppression.

This action leads us to recognize who Jesus is, and what he has done for us. Our Lord declared that in his person the saving reign of God had entered into the world. On another occasion when he had healed a demon oppressed man and was accused of doing so by being in league with the devil, Jesus announced, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Jesus was the presence of God’s reign to free us from Satan, sin, and death. We noted earlier that Jesus had withdrawn into the region of Tyre and Sidon because it was not yet time for his conflict with the religious authorities to result in their action to kill him. But during Lent we are preparing to remember that as our Lord had said, that day did arrive during Holy Week. In the Father’s timing, Jesus carried out the Father’s will as he suffered and died for our sins.  Christ offered himself as the ransom to free us from the judgment of God.

He redeemed us in the weakness and shame of his death. But then on Easter God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead. The Father demonstrated that he had been at work in Jesus’ death to restore us to himself. And in Christ’s resurrection God defeated death forever.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ now is the defining feature of how we look at life. God has acted in the sacrifice of his Son to reveal his love and bring us salvation. In the resurrection of Christ we have received the confirmation that the way of the cross led to victory over death. In his Word, the Spirit of God has made this known to us. Through baptism the Spirit has given us new life as the people of God – a people who know that our sins have been washed away.

God’s Word has revealed what he has done in Christ. In the life and death of Jesus, God has given us his love. As the Gospel God, his word declares that his love and care for us will never end.  There are times when we must listen to that word, and not to our perception of what is happening.  When we experience hardships, and God seems to be silent, because of Christ we listen to the encouragement of God’s Word that his love for us has not ended and that he is still at work in our life.

Scripture teaches us that God uses these experiences to cause us to grow and mature in faith.  St. Paul told the Romans, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

God works through these things to produce endurance, character, and maturity.  These are important traits for a Christian, but they are not things achieved with ease and little cost. Their acquisition is the process of moving from life lived as old Adam, to life lived as new man in Christ.  But for that to happen, God must put to death the old Adam in us. Faith and maturity as Christians grow in the midst of this experience as we are led and sustained by the Spirit.

In our text, the Canaanite woman kept drawing near to Jesus. She didn’t stop. She did it verbally as she kept calling out to him. She did it spatially as she approached and bowed down before him. And in this, she is an example for us in two different ways.

First, at all times, but especially in times of hardship, we need to draw near to Christ and hold on to him. We do this by listening to his word and receiving his sacraments. Through these Means of Grace Jesus is present for us. His Spirit works through these gifts to sustain and strengthen us in faith to face all challenges.

And second, we continue to turn to God and call out in prayer.  Prayer is the cry of faith, and faith is exercised through the act of prayer.  We continue to ask, seek, and knock in prayer because our Lord tells us to do so in the confidence that God does hear, and does answer in his time and way. We can trust this, because Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and then rose from the dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the first mid-week Lent service - Table of Duties: Pastors and Hearers

 

Mid-Lent 1

Table of Duties: Pastors                 and Hearers 

2/25/26

 

            During my life growing up in the Lutheran church I often heard about the “six chief part” of the Small Catechism – the sections that deal with the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and the Sacrament of the Altar. But when I arrived at the seminary, I was in for a surprise because by I learned that there were two other parts of the Small Catechism that in my experience no one had ever talked about.

            The first was the Daily Prayer section which describes prayer at the beginning and ending of the day, and also before and after a meal.  And the second was the Table of Duties – a list of Scripture texts describing how Christians are to live.  I learned that for Martin Luther, these two parts were just as much part of the Small Catechism as the prior six parts. They described how the faith, that had been created and nourished by the first six parts, prays and lives.

            This is the first of our mid-week Lent services.  Lent is about repentance as we reflect on why our Lord died on the cross for us. But Lent is also about catechesis – about teaching the faith. That is why the Lutheran church has historically used Lent as a season when preaching focuses on catechesis. 

And so during Lent we are going to focus on this last and most practical part of the Small Catechism – the Table of Duties. In this list of Bible passages, we find a description of how we live out our faith in Jesus Christ.  In his writings Martin Luther endlessly returns to the theme of faith in Christ and love for our neighbor.  It is faith in Christ alone that saves.  But where this Spirit worked gift is present, there will flow forth love for our neighbor.  Luther pointed out that God doesn’t need your love.  Instead, your neighbor does, and God wants to use you as the means by which he cares for those around you.

            To do this, God has created various vocations, or callings.  He instituted stations in life that we occupy, and God uses us in these positions to care for others.  The Table of Duties is divided up according to these holy orders and positions. And so tonight we consider the first pair, the verse that deal with “To Bishops, Pastors and Preachers” and “What the Hearers Owe Their Pastors.”

            During Lent we are preparing to remember how Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins on Good Friday, and then rose from the dead on Easter. Christ did that some 2000 years ago in Palestine. But we don’t live there and then. Instead, we live in 2026 here in the Marion area. We can’t go back there and then to receive the forgiveness Christ won. And so instead, he delivers it to us here and now through the Means of Grace. He uses the word in its various forms. He uses the word preached and spoken in absolution. He uses the word added to the elements of water in Holy Bapitsm, and bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar.

            However, none of the Means of Grace happen on their own. And so God has not only provided the Means of Grace, but he has also provided the means by which the Means of Grace are given to his people.  He has instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry.  This is the vocation into which pastors are called.  It is God’s Office.  No one can take the Office for himself.  Instead, God must call a man through the work of His Church.  And God tells us the requirements for the office in 1 Timothy 3: “The overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.”

            As one who acts in the stead and place of Jesus Christ, the pastor is a man.  A candidate for this office must be someone who reflects Christ in the way he lives.  No Christian is perfect.  No pastor is perfect.  All live by the forgiveness that Jesus Christ won by his death and resurrection.  Yet as those who shepherd Christ’s flock, we do hold pastors to a higher standard. That is why Paul cautions in the second verse that, “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”  Instead, pastors are to be examples to the church, and so we call those who have lived in the church for some time.

            The pastor in the Office of the Holy Ministry attends to the work of the Gospel.  This is a work that takes place in the world.  But the pastor must also be able to live in the world, and so in the first three verses under “What the Hearers Owe Their Pastors” we learn that hearers provide for a pastor.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel.”  He says in Galatians 6, “Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.”

            God has commanded you to support a pastor who will administer the Means of Grace. And of course more broadly this also includes all of the things we need for the Means of Grace to go on here. If we didn’t pay the church’s electric bill, we would be sitting here in the dark.

            God’s word teaches us about how this is done. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” God tells us to give an offering that is voluntary and cheerful as an expression of thanks to him for all of his blessings.

            And Paul also says in 1 Corinthians, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper.” We learn two things in this important statement. First, our giving is to be first fruits – it comes off the top of what God has given us. Second, it is to be proportional – it reflects how God has prospered us.  In the Old Testament this was figured out as a tithe – ten percent. We have no specific command in the New Testament about how much we are to give.  But certainly, we who have received the Gospel aren’t going to give less. A tithe – ten percent of the income that we receive from God – continues to be our starting point as we think about returning an offering to God that will support the Means of Grace in the Church.

            Paul makes it clear that the pastor is not there to speak his own ideas or opinions. Instead he instructs in Titus 1 that, “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”  The pastor must teach what is true and correct what it false.  Yet this discernment goes beyond simple doctrinal statements.  It takes in how the faith is confessed - or denied – by the way we live.

            Here it is crucial that we remember again whose Office of the Ministry it is – it is God’s.  And we need to remember how the pastor came to serve in that position.  He did not put himself there.  Instead God did, working through his Church. That is why Paul told the pastors gathered at Miletus: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”  For the same reason Peter called the members of a congregation those who have been “allotted” to the pastor.

            Because of this Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5: “We ask you brothers, respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you.  Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.  Live in peace with each other.”  For the same reason, the writer to the Hebrews wrote: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.  Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” We recognize the spiritual authority that pastors have in caring for God’s people in the matters that deal with God’s word. We learn that pastors are accountable to God for how they care for his people. They must speak the truth of God’s word, and carry out pastoral care on that basis – even when this his hard.

            As we live in a world that is becoming more and more like the first century world of the New Testament a pressing challenge faces both pastors and congregation members.  Will pastors be willing to speak the truth?  Will they say that Christ alone is the way to salvation? Will they say that Scripture is the inspired and inerrant word – the authoritative revelation of God? Will they say that sex outside of marriage is sin, and refuse to marry couples that live together? Will they say that homosexuality is sin?  And for congregation members, will they be willing to hear, believe and accept these things … even when it pertains to their own son, daughter or family member?       

            This is the great challenge that faces pastors and hearers.  But we do not face this by our own powers.  Instead, we face these things secure in the knowledge that Christ who was crucified on Good Friday, rose on Easter.  The risen Lord through his Spirit enables us to live in the confidence of his resurrection.  He causes us to be different from the world, because he has called us out of the world.  He gives us eyes to recognize his Church – pastors and people; shepherds and sheep – as the place where his forgiveness reigns and gives life that will never end.

 

Sermon for Ash Wednesday - Joel 2:12-19

                                                                                                        Ash Wednesday

                                                                                                        Joel 2:12-19

                                                                                                        2/18/26

 

 

            Shuvu … shuvu. Return … return. Those are the words that ring out in the first two verses of our text for Ash Wednesday. The Hebrew verb shuv means literally “to turn back or return.” It is a word that is commonly used by itself to express the need for repentance. The image is that a person is going in a way that is not true to the will of God. He is sinning and so needs to turn around; to turn away from sin.

            Sin certainly includes thoughts, acts, and deeds that break God’s law.  But God’s law is not merely some abstract set of rules. It is an expression of God’s will and ordering of life. And so every sin is a sin committed against God. Sin is the rejection of God.  It is the individual saying to God: “You don’t matter and I am going to do my own thing.”

            This very personal nature of sin comes out in our text tonight. God says in the first verse of our text, “Yet even now return to me.” He adds, “Return to Yahweh your God.”  Turning away from sin, means turning back to God.

            It’s not hard to understand why this text from Joel was chosen as the Old Testament lesson for Ash Wednesday. We hear, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

and rend your hearts and not your garments.” 

            God calls upon the people to repent. He urges a repentance that is true and real – not something that is just a matter of going through the motions. He calls upon the people to repent in a way that goes to their very heart as they confess their sin against God and turn back to him.

            What was the people’s sin? We don’t know. Joel never gives us any indication about what the problem was. But if you have read the Old Testament, it’s not hard to guess. The recurring sin was the worship of the false gods that were found among all of the surrounding peoples.  Yahweh had told Israel not to intermarry with these other peoples because they would lead Israel away into the worship of these false gods. But Israel did it anyway, and it produced the exact result about which God had warned them.

            It is no different for us. Of course, we don’t go and offer animal sacrifices to false gods on the high places established by paganism. But we offer sacrifices to our false gods. You can see it in the ways we use what we really value – our time and money.

We lavish our time and money on our hobbies, our entertainment, our recreation, and on that great and almighty god – our sports. When there is the least inconvenience we think nothing of skipping the Divine Service on Sunday. And of course, if there is something else scheduled on Sunday, there is little doubt we will choose that instead.

We don’t take time during the week to read God’s word each day. We ignore our vocation as parents to see that our children are learning the Scriptures.  Our offering in the support of the Means of Grace does not reflect a true proportion of the blessings that God gives to us. It pales in comparison to the ways we spend money on the things we want to do. We are miserly toward God, because we have other gods that we want to worship with our time and money.

While we are aren’t told exactly how the people had sinned, we know how Yahweh’s judgment had come upon them. He had sent a terrible locust plague. Joel says in the previous chapter, “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” Joel compares the locusts to an army that had advanced against the land. He says that the results were devastating as he reports: “The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.”

Joel describes this event as “the day of the Lord.”  He said at the beginning of this chapter, “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” 

The locust plague was not some random natural disaster. Joel declares that it is an act of judgment by God. But the prophet also tells us that the locusts are God acting in a way that it meant to cause repentance. This act of judgment was an act of law that confronted the people with the consequences of their sin.  It was meant to turn the people away from sin and back to God. And so Joel begins our text by saying, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

God’s law continues to do the same thing to us. It confronts our life and reveals our sin. Sometimes those sins have their own built in consequences and punishments.  God uses those consequences to reveal how the things that violate his ordering for life bring harm.  He uses these things to reveal that sin is damaging as he seeks to turn us away from sin and back to God and his ways.

Tonight we begin the season of Lent. Lent is a season of repentance. It is a time of the church year in which we confess the sin that is present in our life. It is also a time that prompts us to examine how we are living our lives and to test this against God’s word.    

In our text, Joel calls upon the people to return. Yet in doing so, he also provides the reason that they can return to God in confidence.  He says, “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.”

This statement – this description of God – repeats over and over in the Old Testament. Why should people repent and return to God? They should do so because God is gracious and merciful. God gives us what we don’t deserve. He wants to be merciful and caring towards us. He is patient because he gives people time to repent. He is slow to anger – his first reaction is not destructive judgement. He abounds in steadfast love. God is love, and he acts in faithful lovingkindness toward us. 

This is what God revealed about himself in the Old Testament. And then in the fullness of time in his grace, mercy, and love God sent his Son into the world in order to rescue us from sin. The season of Lent prepares us to remember the culmination of the saving work that God carried out in Jesus Christ.  During these days of Lent we are moving toward Holy Week. We are moving toward Good Friday.

In the prophet Isaiah, God revealed about his Servant: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

The surprise of Jesus is that he was both the Messiah who descended from King David, and the suffering Servant who received God’s punishment against our sin. As the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament, he was God working through his son – Israel. He was also God working through his son – the Davidic king. Jesus’ death on the cross made atonement for your sin. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” as he received the judgment that you deserved.

Holy Week ends in the darkness of the sealed tomb where Jesus’ lifeless body was placed. But sundown on Saturday is also the beginning of Easter. After winning forgiveness through Jesus’ death, God the Father then defeated death forever by raising Christ from the dead. Through Adam sin and death entered into the world. But through Jesus Christ, the second Adam, God began the resurrection life that will never end.

Now, as sinners we return to our God in confidence. We do because in Jesus God has been gracious, merciful, and loving.  We approach him in the knowledge that God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all so that we can be the forgiven children of God who will enjoy eternal life with him.

Paul told the Colossians that you have “been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” You have been baptized into Christ’s death, and so have forgiveness for every sin you confess. But the crucified Lord is also the risen Lord. Because you are in Christ, already now you share in his resurrection.

And this leads us to live differently. Paul went on to say, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  The Spirit of Christ now prompts us not only to confess sin and receive forgiveness, but also to make changes that remove sin from our lives.  We seek to walk in the way of the Lord because it is God’s will by which we receive blessing in our lives.

Shuvu … shuvu. Return … return. Tonight God calls us to repentance through the words of Joel.  He leads us to see sin for what it is so that we can confess and return to God. We do so because God is gracious, merciful, and loving. That is what he has been in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us. Now through Christ’s Spirit we seek to live in God’s ways, for they are always best for us.