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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)
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard,
saying:
“For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
There is a lot going on this Ash Wednesday. Our Lord has
placed our minds on fasting and what that is, in our Gospel reading. The Church
today commemorates the death of the blessed Dr. Martin Luther, in 1546. And
finally, we will begin our Lenten intensive for seven Wednesdays focusing on
the Book of Job.
We’re going to explore Job for a couple reasons. Yes, he is
one who suffers and so reading and studying his life during Lent makes sense,
but more so because his book is usually difficult to understand. It is a hard
and harsh suffering God allowed to happen and so, as always, we want to know
why.
And first of all, the reason we study any book of Holy
Scripture is to find Jesus, for as He says in John 5:39, you all have the Holy
Scriptures and these speak of me. Thus, even though we hear about Job, we are
hearing of Jesus, even if we don’t see it. And what brings all of this together
is dust and ashes, for Job says in chapter 42:6, “therefore I despise
myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
This means that there is common ground between us and the
Old Testament. Not just because we are all created from the dust of the ground,
but that there is a ceremony that Job follows to place himself in dust and
ashes when the Lord’s hand is heavy upon him.
From Chapter 1:20-21, 2:8, “Then Job arose and tore his
robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said,
‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave,
and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’…as he sat in the
ashes”
Job’s friends, “when they saw him from a distance, they
did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore
their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with
him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him,
for they saw that his suffering was very great” (2:12-13)
“Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on
his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of
Israel. And they put dust on their heads” in Joshua 7:6.
“The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in
silence; they have thrown dust on their heads” in Lamentations 2:10, in
shame in front of the Lord. Mordecai and all the Jews put on sackcloth and
ashes, in Esther 4. And even the “king of Nineveh”, from Jonah 3:6, “arose
from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in
ashes.”
Its like finding yourself in a flash mob or a disney
musical. Why does everyone know all the words??
Yes, there is ceremony, there is purpose, there is
confession to be made in front of God as to Who He is, who we are in front of
Him, and what we are to do about it. And we continue to hold ceremony in the
Lord’s Church, which is a call for full retreat. We are to retreat from our
sins and temptations and we are to retreat from our works, good or bad.
Deny yourself and retreat. That is God’s purpose in the book
of Job and that is God’s purpose for you. For we find Job a righteous man. So
righteous, that God brags about him in heaven. Job’s resume, likely better than
any other patriarch of the Bible, is golden and reaches to God’s own
throne.
And yet, the devil is allowed to harass and harangue. We
like to think we have a deal with God. "I do my part, He does His."
In the ash heap, however, the contract is torn up. Job’s silence for seven days
is the only honest response to the Law of God which always accuses us. You
aren't here to "improve" this Lent; you’re here to die and be raised,
in Christ.
If we’re going to talk about Job, we have to stop trying to
"fix" him. We’re so busy trying to justify God or explain away the
pain that we miss the whole point, the whole point of Scripture and even the
whole point of the Reformation.
The book of Job isn't a puzzle to be solved; it’s a death
sentence. A death sentence that ends in a resurrection. Job chapters 1 and 2
isn't a test of Job’s resolve. It’s the beginning of God’s war on Job’s
"goodness" so that he might live by grace alone.
The Always-Good Law of God must do its crushing work on our
sins and on all our works, in order that the Gospel can actually be good news.
If we have defeated our sins, or racked up enough good works, or felt sorry
enough, then we are the main star: see, I did it on my own.
In the example of Job, We are moved from the "God of my
imagination"—the one who rewards the "good" boys and girls—to
the God who shows up in the whirlwind and the wounds of Christ.
The God Who crushes and the God Who heals. Job isn’t a story
about a man’s patience or perserverance; it’s a story about God’s "alien
work" of killing the old Adam to make room for the new.
This was blessed Dr. Luther’s point and the point that all
the Reformers were trying to make. There is no silver lining to kissing the
pope’s ring, you will still be a dirty sinner in the morning. There is no
silver lining to trusting in prayers to the saints or buying indulgences. Don’t
try to sugar coat what God is doing. Just sit in the dust.
Thus when we return to our ceremony which unites us to Job
and Luther, our Ash Wednesday liturgy, we don’t just "do" repentance;
we are un-done by it. God’s Law doesn't just give us "information"
about our sin that we can analyze and execute; it executes us. Right at the
cross of Christ.
Throughout the book of Job, he is on full retreat. He is
forced to start over, having lost family and earthly goods to marauders and he
is forced to endlessly defend his righteousness, which comes from God, and yet
try to understand why this happened, when he has done everything right.
It's great. On the Eighth Day, Job finally opens his mouth
and the first thing he says is, “I wish I was never born”. If this is how God
treats those who love Him, I can’t imagine what His enemies feel. And if I’m
going to feel like an enemy, what’s the point to even being here?
We are driven in that same way. Christ mounts His cross and
demands, “Let see you explain this one away, boys!” Because the message of the
cross is forgiveness. But if its’ forgiveness, then there must be something to
be forgiven. If we don’t need forgiveness, then we better find a different
religion. If we do need forgiveness, then we better get in the dust and ashes.
Because it is only in the dust and ashes that Jesus can do
something with you. If you insist on being the potter and molding yourself,
then you’ll have to go to the scrap pile. If you are emptied, confessed a poor
miserable sinner, without any merit or worthiness in you, then there is hope.
For Christ fills all in all, and that includes you.
And the cross is God in the ash heap. You think you sit
alone? Job had his friends at first, but God was there listening, acting. “He
raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make
them sit with princes”, says Psalm 113:7-8. And when He finally
responds at the end of Job’s book, He shows He was there the whole time.
From Hebrews 9:13-14, “For if the blood of goats and
bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer,
sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God,
purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
It is the will of God to forgive your dust and ashes, remove
you from them, and place a crown on your head, giving you His Kingdom. In
Christ, dust and ashes become princes. In Christ, Job’s suffering cleanses and
purifies like a refiner’s fire, revealing the true gold and silver of faith in
Christ.
So we move ourselves through our ceremony, not because we
need a reminder of death, but a reminder of who we are and what Christ has done
for us.
"Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you will
return." But also know, man, that God loved you and gave you the Savior.
To you and to everyone: Christ who died for us on the cross, where our death
was conquered by His death. Christ, who took upon himself the punishment that
we must bear.
We deserved it, but He was made responsible for us. His
death became our life, and the instrument of execution, the cross, became a
sign of salvation. That is why the ashes on our foreheads take the salvific
shape of the cross.
For if, being enemies, we were reconciled to God through the
death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
(Rom. 5:10)
Who is Job without Christ? Who are we without Christ? Only
dust. But by partaking of Christ, we are saved by His life (Rom. 5:10). Because
the Lord said, "the one who eats Me, he will live by Me" (John 6:57).
In the Eucharist, His life flows into us, becomes our life.
So run to church. This is where your salvation is worked out
(from Phil. 2:12). God is waiting for you here during this time of Great Lent
and always. Leave the vanity and thoughts about the earthly, and come to
commune of the heavenly Bread. And although life on earth will still be deadly
and hard, the One who died for you will be with you and in you to give you
eternal life.
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