[The following is a manuscript of the meditation delivered Ash Wednesday evening, the 6th of March, 2019 at Pilgrim Reformed Church. Look for the video of this and our other services on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
Our Bible tells us of a city where a great work was done because the people repented. God loved the people of this city, even though He knew of their great wickedness. They sinned against God and against their fellow man, both in the communities around them and even among their own. God decided to destroy them, but not before giving them just one more chance.
Listen and follow along to a story of redemption as told in his own words by Jonah in his book of prophecy, chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, and chapter 3 verses 1 through 10…
Listen and follow along to a story of redemption as told in his own words by Jonah in his book of prophecy, chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, and chapter 3 verses 1 through 10…
1:1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.”
3:1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. 4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying,
Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?
10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
--Jonah 1:1-2, 3:1-10 (NKJV)
Let us pray… Father God, You loved the people of Nineveh even though they sinned. And we know You love us, even though we sin. The people of Nineveh repented and turned from their wicked ways, and You relented. You stayed Your fierce anger so that they would not perish. You forgave them and saved them. Father, help us be as the Ninevites. Help us turn from our sinful ways and give ourselves fully to You. Forgive us and save us, please, O merciful God. In the name of Your Son Jesus we pray. Amen.
We all know the story of Jonah and the large fish, or the “whale” as we mistakenly call it. But do we ever think of this as a love story?
God shows His love first to Jonah and then to Nineveh. He told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn them that if they did not repent of their wickedness, He would utterly destroy them. Their fate would have matched that of Sodom. Jonah knew in his heart that if the people of Nineveh did repent, then God would spare them. But Jonah hated Nineveh and wanted to see them destroyed, so He disobeyed God and ran away.
God loved Jonah, so He gave him another chance to do the right thing. Sure, being swallowed up by a great fish and spending three days in its belly would not exactly be a relaxing vacation at sea. But God could just as easily have struck him dead on the spot. Instead, God showed His love and mercy and spared Jonah, who still reluctantly carried out his mission. And just as Jonah feared, the Ninevites repented and turned from their lives of sin.
Now, what to us may seem the most amazing in this story is that the leader of Nineveh, their king, was the first to repent! He even ordered his people to do likewise, and not only the people but also their beasts and herds and flocks. And, amazingly again, the people did just as they were ordered!
Nineveh was more than just an ordinary city. It was more a city-state, an important cultural and commercial center. Think of New York City or Los Angeles and that would be close to the general idea of Nineveh. And now think of what the reaction of the citizens of New York City would be if the mayor decreed that every man, woman, child, and animal in the city would repent of their wickedness and turn to God. I bet we could hear the laughter from here. Shoot, even the mayor of Lexington would be laughed out of office if he tried such a thing. But the people of Nineveh listened, and obeyed. They repented, and were saved.
If the leaders of New York or Los Angeles or Lexington won’t openly repent and order they people to repent, then what chance to we have to be saved? What of the people of Greensboro, of Raleigh, of Charlotte? What about the leaders and citizens of Paris, of London, of Moscow, of Saudi Arabia? What chance do any of us have?
Well, the answer is simple: God loves us. He loves us so much, the same way He loved Nineveh. Just as He sent Jonah into Nineveh to warn its people, God sent His own Son into this world to warn us, to call us to repentance. God loves us so much He sent His Son to serve as a sacrifice for our sins, that we might be forgiven. Jesus carried our sins to the cross, and then to the grave, where He left them when He rose again to life. Because of God’s love and the precious blood of Jesus, we are washed clean and saved.
But we must not return to our wicked ways. We must not continue to sin, just because we are saved. We must turn completely from our disobedience to God, giving ourselves wholly to Him.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, when we, at least symbolically, cover ourselves in sackcloth and sit in ashes, just as did the king of Nineveh. We do so as an acknowledgment and confession of our sins and disobedience, as a sign of our 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 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 serve as a sign of our own mortality. In the Book of Genesis, God reminds Adam and Eve that they were formed from dust and to dust they will return. Ashes are a form of dust. 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 by the sacrifice of our Lord, 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. For instance, when I decided to be baptized as an adult, it was an outward sign of my inward acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Master. 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, the king of Nineveh covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes. In this he outwardly and inwardly recognized and confessed his wickedness and disobedience, and that of his people. And by God’s love and mercy, he and his people were saved from destruction.
By following the king’s example, externally and especially internally, we too will be forgiven and saved. 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, in 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.
Tonight, I don’t have ashes to give you. Instead, I have a small symbol of God’s love. It is a little heart you can carry in your pocket or purse. It is a little heart formed by bending a nail, similar to the type used to hang Jesus from the cross. God loves us so much that He gave us His own heart, His own Son.
Carry this little heart with you all the time. Maybe you’ll have a chance to show it to someone, to tell them how much God loves you, how much God loves them. Give something up for Lent, something meaningful, in remembrance of Jesus giving up everything for us. Let us confess our disobedience to God and repent of our sin, so that the sacrifice Jesus made will have meaning.
In the name of our Master and Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord. 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 confessing and 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 sackcloth 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.
We all know the story of Jonah and the large fish, or the “whale” as we mistakenly call it. But do we ever think of this as a love story?
God shows His love first to Jonah and then to Nineveh. He told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn them that if they did not repent of their wickedness, He would utterly destroy them. Their fate would have matched that of Sodom. Jonah knew in his heart that if the people of Nineveh did repent, then God would spare them. But Jonah hated Nineveh and wanted to see them destroyed, so He disobeyed God and ran away.
God loved Jonah, so He gave him another chance to do the right thing. Sure, being swallowed up by a great fish and spending three days in its belly would not exactly be a relaxing vacation at sea. But God could just as easily have struck him dead on the spot. Instead, God showed His love and mercy and spared Jonah, who still reluctantly carried out his mission. And just as Jonah feared, the Ninevites repented and turned from their lives of sin.
Now, what to us may seem the most amazing in this story is that the leader of Nineveh, their king, was the first to repent! He even ordered his people to do likewise, and not only the people but also their beasts and herds and flocks. And, amazingly again, the people did just as they were ordered!
Nineveh was more than just an ordinary city. It was more a city-state, an important cultural and commercial center. Think of New York City or Los Angeles and that would be close to the general idea of Nineveh. And now think of what the reaction of the citizens of New York City would be if the mayor decreed that every man, woman, child, and animal in the city would repent of their wickedness and turn to God. I bet we could hear the laughter from here. Shoot, even the mayor of Lexington would be laughed out of office if he tried such a thing. But the people of Nineveh listened, and obeyed. They repented, and were saved.
If the leaders of New York or Los Angeles or Lexington won’t openly repent and order they people to repent, then what chance to we have to be saved? What of the people of Greensboro, of Raleigh, of Charlotte? What about the leaders and citizens of Paris, of London, of Moscow, of Saudi Arabia? What chance do any of us have?
Well, the answer is simple: God loves us. He loves us so much, the same way He loved Nineveh. Just as He sent Jonah into Nineveh to warn its people, God sent His own Son into this world to warn us, to call us to repentance. God loves us so much He sent His Son to serve as a sacrifice for our sins, that we might be forgiven. Jesus carried our sins to the cross, and then to the grave, where He left them when He rose again to life. Because of God’s love and the precious blood of Jesus, we are washed clean and saved.
But we must not return to our wicked ways. We must not continue to sin, just because we are saved. We must turn completely from our disobedience to God, giving ourselves wholly to Him.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, when we, at least symbolically, cover ourselves in sackcloth and sit in ashes, just as did the king of Nineveh. We do so as an acknowledgment and confession of our sins and disobedience, as a sign of our 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 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 serve as a sign of our own mortality. In the Book of Genesis, God reminds Adam and Eve that they were formed from dust and to dust they will return. Ashes are a form of dust. 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)
But I think the most important point the ashes make is as an external sign of our internal confession and repentance. For instance, when I decided to be baptized as an adult, it was an outward sign of my inward acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Master. 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, the king of Nineveh covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes. In this he outwardly and inwardly recognized and confessed his wickedness and disobedience, and that of his people. And by God’s love and mercy, he and his people were saved from destruction.
By following the king’s example, externally and especially internally, we too will be forgiven and saved. 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, in 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.
Tonight, I don’t have ashes to give you. Instead, I have a small symbol of God’s love. It is a little heart you can carry in your pocket or purse. It is a little heart formed by bending a nail, similar to the type used to hang Jesus from the cross. God loves us so much that He gave us His own heart, His own Son.
Carry this little heart with you all the time. Maybe you’ll have a chance to show it to someone, to tell them how much God loves you, how much God loves them. Give something up for Lent, something meaningful, in remembrance of Jesus giving up everything for us. Let us confess our disobedience to God and repent of our sin, so that the sacrifice Jesus made will have meaning.
In the name of our Master and Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord. 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 confessing and 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 sackcloth 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.
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