[The following is a manuscript of my meditation delivered during our Ash Wednesday evening service, the 14th of February, 2018. Look for the video on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
Wikipedia describes the Book of Daniel as “a biblical apocalypse, combining a prophecy of history with an eschatology (the study of last things) which is both cosmic in scope and political in its focus”. That mouthful means that Daniel tried to warn his people of what is to come by using information he gained not only from God but also from his study of the prophet Jeremiah’s writings. His predictions of the end times strongly support what the Apostle John was shown by Jesus and as recorded in his Book of Revelation. One could say that the general message Daniel tried to leave us with is that just as God saved him and his friends from their trials, so will He deliver Israel from their and us from our times of trouble.
As we read through Daniel’s book, Israel is in exile in Babylon, but through his studies of Jeremiah and by what he is shown from God, Daniel realizes that the end of their captivity is close at hand. So he prays to God, a powerful prayer, confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness for himself and his people. I would like to look at a part of this prayer this evening. Listen to the words of Daniel from chapter 9, verses 1 through 7, of his book of prophecy…
As we read through Daniel’s book, Israel is in exile in Babylon, but through his studies of Jeremiah and by what he is shown from God, Daniel realizes that the end of their captivity is close at hand. So he prays to God, a powerful prayer, confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness for himself and his people. I would like to look at a part of this prayer this evening. Listen to the words of Daniel from chapter 9, verses 1 through 7, of his book of prophecy…
1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans — 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.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. 6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.--Daniel 9:1-7 (NKJV)
Let us pray… Father God, Daniel was a righteous man, yet he understood the need to come before You in prayer, confessing not only his own sins but those of his people, seeking forgiveness for them all that they might be delivered from their current trials. Forgive us, Father, when we fail to confess our own sins to You until the guilt becomes unbearable. Forgive us our disobediences, our transgressions, our sins. Help us pray, please Father, to more fully understand our need to pray and confess, and to share Your wonderful message of salvation. In the name of Your Son Jesus we pray. Amen.
Daniel was indeed a very righteous man. You may remember that he completely disregarded the orders of the most powerful man on earth so that he not disobey God. King Darius, although he respected Daniel, had no choice but to punish him for his disobedience of the king’s direct decree. So the prophet was thrown into the lion’s den. But God shut the mouths of those hungry lions and the life of His righteous servant and prophet was spared.
So why would this man, obviously favored by God, feel the need to “set [his] face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” and “make confession”, as he states in verses 3 and 4? Because he knew he and his people had sinned. He knew that is a definite link between confession and forgiveness. He knew that God will forgive, but only if we ourselves are fully aware of what we have done wrong and are humbly willing to admit it!
It’s one thing to know that we are sinners. And we know that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins, so that our sins might be forgiven if we would only believe in and follow Him. It’s fairly easy to say the words, “Father, I have sinned. Please forgive me.” It’s not quite so easy to say them and mean them, to say those words with conviction. It’s far more difficult still to add, “and here are all the ways I have disobeyed You:”, and then start listing them off, one by one.
“Father, I felt great anger against a fellow believer this morning, and I harbored thoughts against him I should not have. I had no love in my heart.” “Lord God, I saw one of Your children without a warm coat, without a protective place to lay his head and sleep, and I looked the other way, ignoring his plight.” “Father, today I remember how much my loved one suffered, and I began to doubt Your love.”
Daniel did not confess to God because God needed to know what was going on. Nor do we – that’s not the point. God knows everything! He knows what we are about to do before we ever do it!
He wants us to confess when we do something wrong so that we will know! We need to fully understand that what we did was wrong and why it was wrong! That’s what confession is all about: to convict us of our wrong doing! And then, by God’s great mercy and through the sacrifice of Jesus our Lord, a beautiful thing happens: we are forgiven.
This is why the righteous man named Daniel prayed. This is why he confessed. So that he and his people would be forgiven and God would again smile upon them. So let’s pray for ourselves and for all people across the globe. We must acknowledge our sins as individuals and as a people. Then we can seek and receive God’s forgiveness.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our time of Lent, when we, at least symbolically, put on sackcloth and cover ourselves in ashes as a sign of repentance and a reflection on our own mortality. In a way, it is an acknowledgment and confession of our sins and disobedience. 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 a few, if any, having seen them.
But there should be more to Lent than wearing ashes for a few minutes on a Wednesday night. 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…
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 confession and 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 kind of 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. 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 many 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.
In our scripture reading this evening, Daniel notes that he prayed with “fasting, sackcloth, and ashes”. Daniel understood the need to outwardly and inwardly recognize and confess our wickedness and disobedience. Had we read further in his book, we would have seen that Daniel and the children of Israel were indeed forgiven and eventually freed from captivity and allowed to return to their land.
Our Lord Himself encourages us to do as Daniel and others did and repent in ashes. By following Daniel’s example, externally but especially internally, we too will be forgiven. Our need is not to don sackcloth robes and sit in ashes, but to confess and repent of our sin. Sackcloth and ashes are merely an outward sign of what we must feel inside our hearts.
But 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 the sign 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 sackcloth and ashes you’ll receive tonight and display them for others to see, but more importantly, confess your disobedience to God and repent of your sin, so that the ashes and sackcloth have meaning.
In the name of our Master and Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Daniel was indeed a very righteous man. You may remember that he completely disregarded the orders of the most powerful man on earth so that he not disobey God. King Darius, although he respected Daniel, had no choice but to punish him for his disobedience of the king’s direct decree. So the prophet was thrown into the lion’s den. But God shut the mouths of those hungry lions and the life of His righteous servant and prophet was spared.
So why would this man, obviously favored by God, feel the need to “set [his] face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” and “make confession”, as he states in verses 3 and 4? Because he knew he and his people had sinned. He knew that is a definite link between confession and forgiveness. He knew that God will forgive, but only if we ourselves are fully aware of what we have done wrong and are humbly willing to admit it!
It’s one thing to know that we are sinners. And we know that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins, so that our sins might be forgiven if we would only believe in and follow Him. It’s fairly easy to say the words, “Father, I have sinned. Please forgive me.” It’s not quite so easy to say them and mean them, to say those words with conviction. It’s far more difficult still to add, “and here are all the ways I have disobeyed You:”, and then start listing them off, one by one.
“Father, I felt great anger against a fellow believer this morning, and I harbored thoughts against him I should not have. I had no love in my heart.” “Lord God, I saw one of Your children without a warm coat, without a protective place to lay his head and sleep, and I looked the other way, ignoring his plight.” “Father, today I remember how much my loved one suffered, and I began to doubt Your love.”
Daniel did not confess to God because God needed to know what was going on. Nor do we – that’s not the point. God knows everything! He knows what we are about to do before we ever do it!
He wants us to confess when we do something wrong so that we will know! We need to fully understand that what we did was wrong and why it was wrong! That’s what confession is all about: to convict us of our wrong doing! And then, by God’s great mercy and through the sacrifice of Jesus our Lord, a beautiful thing happens: we are forgiven.
This is why the righteous man named Daniel prayed. This is why he confessed. So that he and his people would be forgiven and God would again smile upon them. So let’s pray for ourselves and for all people across the globe. We must acknowledge our sins as individuals and as a people. Then we can seek and receive God’s forgiveness.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our time of Lent, when we, at least symbolically, put on sackcloth and cover ourselves in ashes as a sign of repentance and a reflection on our own mortality. In a way, it is an acknowledgment and confession of our sins and disobedience. 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 a few, if any, having seen them.
But there should be more to Lent than wearing ashes for a few minutes on a Wednesday night. 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)
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 kind of 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. 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 many 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.
In our scripture reading this evening, Daniel notes that he prayed with “fasting, sackcloth, and ashes”. Daniel understood the need to outwardly and inwardly recognize and confess our wickedness and disobedience. Had we read further in his book, we would have seen that Daniel and the children of Israel were indeed forgiven and eventually freed from captivity and allowed to return to their land.
Our Lord Himself encourages us to do as Daniel and others did and repent in ashes. By following Daniel’s example, externally but especially internally, we too will be forgiven. Our need is not to don sackcloth robes and sit in ashes, but to confess and repent of our sin. Sackcloth and ashes are merely an outward sign of what we must feel inside our hearts.
But 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 the sign 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 sackcloth and ashes you’ll receive tonight and display them for others to see, but more importantly, confess your disobedience to God and repent of your sin, so that the ashes and sackcloth have meaning.
In the name of our Master and Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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