Repent and Be Restored

[The following is a manuscript of my Ash Wednesday message delivered on Wednesday evening, the 1st of March, 2017.]

We all know the story of Job, a man of great faith, yet whom God allowed Satan to severely test.  There is a lot of back and forth in this story, with a couple of secondary plotlines going.  Job has a good life until God allows the devil to have at him.  When everything turns upside down and Job loses nearly all he has, his friends all believe it must be because he sinned and God is punishing him.  Even his wife thinks it’s all his own fault, but Job doesn’t believe it, and gets to the point where he blames God for all this torment.

But finally he gets it.  Once God rebukes him and puts him in his place, Job understands.  Listen to the words of Job, from chapter 42, verses 1 through 6 and 16 and 17…

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:

2 “I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4 Listen, please, and let me speak;
You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
6 Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.”

16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. 17 So Job died, old and full of days.

--Job 42:1-6; 16-17 (NKJV)

Let us pray…  Father God, while sometimes we think we know everything, our knowledge pales to a mere shadow in comparison to Yours.  Forgive us, Lord, when we, like Job, question You and what You do with Your creation.  Forgive us when we have doubts, when our faith wavers.  Help us more fully understand the message of the cross, and our need to repent in dust and ashes.  In the name of Your Son Jesus we pray.  Amen.


Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our time of Lent, when we, at least symbolically, cover ourselves in ashes as a sign of repentance and a reflection on our own mortality.  Many will leave their churches tonight with the sign of the cross marked in ashes upon their foreheads or the backs of their hands.  And then they’ll go home and wash them off with only their friends having seen them.

But there should be more to Lent than wearing ashes for a few minutes on a Wednesday night.  For this is a time when we should seek to grow closer to our Lord Jesus by trying to experience some small measure of what He went through while He walked this earth.  Ash Wednesday kicks off our observance of the journey Jesus made starting with His 40 days of temptation by Satan in the wilderness and ending at the cross on good Friday.

The ashes are useful, though, as a sign of our own mortality.  In our Invocation earlier, I read to you from chapter 3 verse 19 of the Book of Genesis where God reminds Adam and Eve that they were created and formed from dust and to dust they will return.  Ashes are a form of dust.  They remind us that it is only through God that we even have life.  He gave us life.  And He can take it away at any moment.

A piece of paper, a chunk of wood, a frond from last year’s Palm Sunday service… when anything is completely burned and consumed by fire, it undergoes a total metamorphosis, a full change.  It becomes something new, something we call ashes.  In his 2nd letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 5 verse 17, the Apostle Paul tells us…

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

--2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

Ashes are the new thing something burned has become once it passes away in fire.  The ashes speak of our restoration in righteousness, of our new life in Christ Jesus.

But I think the most important point the ashes make is as an external sign of our internal repentance.  As an example of what I mean, when I chose to be baptized as an adult, it was an outward sign of my inward acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Master as well as my personal Savior.  You can’t see into my soul, but you could have seen me getting sprinkled one time or dunked in the water the second time, and many people did.  The ashes of Ash Wednesday are like my baptisms.  We can’t peer into a person’s heart to see if they are truly repenting of their sins.  If they are wearing the ashes, it is an outward expression of their internal turning from sin.

And this is strongly evidenced in our Bible, where ashes are often associated with mourning and grief.  If I sin and I know I have sinned and I truly regret my sin, don’t I feel a measure of grief?  Don’t I mourn that loss of righteousness my sin caused me?  In those Biblical passages, most frequently in the Old Testament, people would express their repentance by sprinkling ashes over their heads, by sitting in ashes or rolling around in them, even sometimes by mixing ashes in with their food or drink.  We have one such passage in the scripture I read from Job, where he states that he hates himself, and repents in dust and ashes.  Notice, though, that Job is forgiven of his sin because he repented.  He is forgiven, and all that was lost is restored to him.

Listen also to what the prophet Daniel says in chapter 9 of his book, verses 3 through 5…

3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.

--Daniel 9:3-5 (NKJV)

Daniel goes on to say that while all righteousness belongs to God, shame belongs to us because of our wickedness and disobedience.

Now don’t think that using ashes as a sign of repentance is only an Old Testament ritual, not applicable to life after Jesus.  Our Lord Himself encourages us to do as Daniel and Job and repent in ashes.  When He sent 70 of His disciples out to spread the Gospel, He told them that some towns would not accept their message.  And then He warned those towns, and us also.  Listen to the Gospel account of the Apostle Luke, chapter 10, verses 13 and 14…

13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.”

--Luke 10:13-14 (NKJV)

Jesus is not trying to drive home the need of sitting in sackcloth and ashes, but the need of repenting of our sin.  Sitting in ashes is merely an outward sign of repenting.  It’s the repentance that is crucially important!

So I ask, what good is a sign if no one sees it?  How helpful would it be for others, especially non-believers, if only a few, if any, take note of it and understand what it is trying to say?  How useful are ashes worn on the forehead or hand when they are washed off shortly after being applied?  Worse yet, what if the ashes are only being worn because everyone else is wearing them?  What if the outward sign is really only a mask, hiding the true spirit of an unrepentant heart?

The people of the Old and New Testament times understood what the ashes represented.  And some do today.  But many more have no clue.  They probably wonder why some people are going around with dirt on their foreheads.  What is applied in the form of the cross quickly becomes an oily smudge.  We could take the time to explain it to them, if they asked.  We could tell them what the ashes mean to us, what Jesus means to us, what repenting means to us.  If they asked, and if we shared with them our witness, it just might put them on the road that leads to salvation by accepting Jesus as their Lord.  But they’ll never have the chance, if they don’t see the ashes.


Give something up for Lent, something meaningful, in remembrance of Jesus giving everything up for us.  Take the “ashes” you’ll receive tonight and display them for others to see, but more importantly, truly repent in your heart of your disobedience to God so that the ashes have meaning.  In the name of our Master and Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.


Our prayer of confession releases us from the tremendous burden of self-importance.  In emptying ourselves, we make room for God’s presence to fill us.  Let us join now in the prayer of confession:

Merciful God, You have called us to be Your people.  You have sought to stimulate our growth with the nurturing of Your Word and the witness of the faithful through the ages.  Yet we have become arid and dry because we have not sought the regular refreshment of the Word and witness.  We have not stood firm in the cause of righteousness and justice because our roots have not sufficiently entwined themselves around the rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ.  O God, wash us clean and water us again to new life by Your Spirit.  Amen.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Amen.


The season of Lent is a time of penitence, discipline, and restoration.  In this Ash Wednesday service we are reminded of our mortality, we confess our sins, and we experience forgiveness through Christ’s death and resurrection.  In Scripture, ashes serve both as a symbol of mortality and as a sign of mourning and repentance.  But the way modern services treat ashes today leaves no lasting symbol, for we go home and wash them off with no one else ever seeing them.  We soon forget they were even applied.

So tonight I invite you to come forward, come to the foot of the cross and receive not ashes, but another reminder of the sacrifice our Lord made on our behalf, and of what our response should be.  I have two small bookmarks for each of you.  Use them in your Bible or a book you’re reading.  Carry and use them throughout this season of Lent.  If you get a chance, show them to others and explain what this is all about.  And remember that it really is all about repenting of our disobedience to God.  If we repent, God will forgive us and restore to us what was lost.

Let these little bookmarks be a constant reminder not only of our sin and need to repent, but also of the sacrifice Jesus made for us.  Remember the punishment He bore that we deserve.  Remember that God made us from the dust, and without Him we would have no life.  Repent, and be restored.  Amen.


Let us pray…  Father God, You created us from the dust of this earth, and someday to dust we will return.  But while we breathe, may we live holy lives, always remembering the sacrifice Your Son Jesus made on our behalf.  May we observe this season of Lent by examining ourselves, by truly repenting of our disobedience and sin, by prayer and fasting, by works of love and service, and by reading and meditating upon Your word.  We repent in dust and ashes, O Lord, and seek Your forgiveness.  This we pray in the blessed name of Jesus our Christ, who gave His all for us.  Amen.


Neither sin nor death is the final word.  We can leave this service with confident assurance and with great thanks.  Jesus took our sins upon Himself.  Our Lord Christ conquered death.  And now nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Go in peace, and in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.