Rejoicing in Repentance [Ash Wednesday]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Joel 2:12-19

• 2 Peter 1:2-11

• St. Matthew 6:16-21

 

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 

(2 Pet 1)
 
Who speaks to you this evening, from His Gospel heard, saying:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

 
Our true fortune, our true treasure is Christ, as we said Sunday, Who comes to seek and to save sinners by the forgiveness of sins. The Word of God, even in our hymns, wants us to hear this, because we ought to place our trust and hope in Christ alone and His work. No amount of “lenting” will merit grace, but agreement with God will. Agreement in Fatih that our sins are horrid, but that they are paid for by Christ alone.
 
This Lententide, we will be studying THE Reformation hymn: Dear Christians one and all rejoice; 556 in your hymnals. You’d think “A mighty Fortress” when we say Reformation, but no. The reason being is Dear Christians one and all Rejoice is a complete teaching of Reformation doctrine, in song. If anyone was going to be persuaded by the Word of God in song, it would be by Dear Christians, not A Mighty Fortress.
 
Dr. Luther’s first congregational hymn, its first appearance had it titled “A Christian hymn of Dr. Martin Luther, setting forth the unspeakable grace of God and the true faith." The blessings wrought by this hymn are well summarized in this paragraph of Tileman Hesshusius:
I do not doubt that through this one hymn of Luther many hundreds of Christians have been brought to the true faith who before could not endure the name of Luther; but the noble, precious words of the hymn have won their hearts, so that they are constrained to embrace the truth, so that in my opinion the hymns have helped the spread of the Gospel not a little.” (Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, 1958, p278)
 
And because we find the doctrine of Christ, in this hymn, we will find teaching for Lent. Tonight, we focus on the first stanza which goes:
“Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice,
with exultation springing,
and with united heart and voice
and holy rapture singing,
proclaim the wonders God has done,
how his right arm the vict'ry won.
What price our ransom cost him!”
 
What first should strike you is the rejoicing. There’s no rejoicing in Lent, right? We have buried our Alleluias, oops I said it, and we have put up our Gloria in Excelsis. Six weeks from now, we can take them up again in the unbroken light of Easter which will shine as fresh sunlight after a dismal storm. But why bubble that joy in the shadow of Christ’s suffering, in the ash heap of Lent’s first day?
 
This is because the Christian finds joy in the darkest of night. The Christian finds joy in repentance. It may seem ugly or even scary, to admit your full guilt in front of God, but there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (see Luke 15:7). It is the joy of which David speaks when He makes supplication to the Almighty: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” in Psalm 51:12. 
 
The joy of repentance causes the sweet singer of Israel then to confess “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness” (Ps. 51:14). Where there is repentance, there is joy. Where there is repentance, there is the declaration of what God done.
 
There is declaration because of revelation. As we said Sunday, a prisoner doesn’t know he’s in prison unless someone tells him. And when God reveals Himself, He sheds light on said prison. In other words, He reveals His Law and His Gospel.
 
Rejoicing comes when and where the Law does its proper work. That is when it convicts, accuses, and kills. It does this when it is revealed that we are sinners and that we do not have true fear, love, and trust in God. The Law always accuses (Rom 4:15) and so the sinner will either die in his sin or die to his sin.
 
Dying in our sin means hell for all eternity. But what does dying to sin, look like? St. David will be our teacher, through his infamous Bathsheba event in 2 Samuel 11-12. Just to sum up quickly: David peeped on another man’s wife and got her pregnant. He tried to cover it up by bringing her husband, Uriah, home from the war, but he wouldn’t. then St. David had Uriah murdered on the front lines and claimed Bathsheba as his own wife.
 
He had thought he had done nothing wrong and had actually provided better for Bathsheba and her infant. That all came crashing down when Jesus sent Nathan to proclaim His Holy Law and David’s guilt. The Lord revealed that David sinned. David repented by agreeing with God’s verdict. He said, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” in Psalm 51:4 again.
    
David continues, saying, “let the bones you have broken rejoice” (Ps 51:8). And David was not being dramatic. For though David found forgiveness in confession, the child conceived illicitly would not live and strife and sword would always be in David’s family. Not by God’s doing, but by sin’s destructive power which ruins not only the sinner, but those around him as well.
 
So we agree with God. That is what repentance really means, that we think like God. God calls sin a sin and because we are sinners, we sin. Yes, Lord, we are sinners and deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. But the Lord speaks twice about sin, with which we must also agree.
 
The wonders we proclaim, as our hymn sings, is two-fold. First that we confess our sins and second that 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.
 
For Jesus also speaks the Gospel about sin. That He takes away our guilt and condemnation for the sins we commit, sometimes cheerfully and piously! Thus, we do not focus on how sorry we are or how much misery we can put ourselves through during Lent, but our focus is on the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.
 
In the Gospel of Christ, heart and mind are united with God to proclaim His wonders. That He has forgiven sinners, that He has died for sinners while we still were sinners, and that He reveals the price of His ransom for you.
 
That price being His right arm stretched on the cross. That price being His Body and His Blood, given and shed for you. For “through him [you] are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet 1:21). And although the sinner “will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb” (Rev 14:10), He is the “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29).
 
The fact that Jesus commands fasting, reminds us that Jesus did not choose the easy part. If He only had to give up food or meat, then we could all accomplish our own salvation, without Christ. But faith looks to Jesus in all things, “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).
 
In this Good News, Dear Christians one and all, rejoice, For God has revealed Himself as the Son, bestowing on you His dearest treasure. And though we repent in dust and ashes tonight, Jesus does not leave us in dust and ashes. Though we will return to the dust from which we were made, His right arm lifted in sacrifice on the cross, lifts you out of the ash heap and crowns you with His victory.
 
No longer does our sin define us, but the Body and Blood of the Lamb. Your sins are forgiven in His sacrifice and He lets us proclaim His death until He comes in eating and drinking at His Holy Table. In that death and resurrection, you have His Life in His Name as long as the Word of the Lord endures.