[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon ASH WEDNESDAY 17 February 2010 "Create in Us New and Contrite Hearts" Matthew 6:1-6 LSB Series A, B, C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Ash Wednesday begins the Lenten season, the forty days the Christian Church has set aside to prepare for the proper celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Today begins a season of repentance, not just a day, but a season that causes one to evaluate his life in the light of God's Word, for if one does not know how estranged he is from God because of his sins, he cannot rightly understand nor appreciate the work of Christ in dying on the cross. Nor can he rightly comprehend the resurrection of Christ on the third day.

A group of high profile Anglican bishops have called on Brits to have a fast, except that it is a "carbon fast." They are asking people to keep their carbon consumption down as a way of observing Lent [Associated Press, 16 February 2010]. They want people to curb their use of electricity, and therefore, the use of carbon during Lent. Bishop of London Rev. Richard Chartres said that doing this was "an opportunity to demonstrate the love of God in a practical way." Is this what Lent has become to most of our world? Has it too been overcome by political correctness? What unbeliever could not keep Lent in this way? Where is repentance and faith, confession and absolution?

The Collect for this day prays:

Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. The Collect makes it clear that the problem does not lie in God, but in us. We are out of joint with God. We have strayed from his ways. We have not kept his Commandments. We have lived as if we mattered most, ignoring God. The result is that we have lost our love for our neighbor as well. As of first importance we pray that God will "create in us new and contrite hearts."

The Collect goes on to show us that we need to lament our sins and own up to our sinfulness so that God will forgive us for Christ's sake. This means that God needs to shine his bright light of the Law on our lives. God needs to expose our sins for us to see. He knows them all. You and I need to own up to them and confess them, agreeing with God that his condemnation of us is just and right and true.

Tonight marks a beginning but it is not an end. We are not finished with repentance after we have washed the ashes from our foreheads. That would be an empty gesture, one in which God would have no pleasure. Rather, we are to be continually repenting of our sins. In 1517 Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-five Theses which he posted on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. There is another title, often forgotten, but one which enlightens the discussion:

DISPUTATION ON THE POWER AND EFFICACY OF INDULGENCES¹

Luther wanted to debate how indulgences had moved the people away from real repentance, that is contrite hearts, to a mechanical action that bore little resemblance to repentance. In his first thesis, the chief thesis, Luther stated:

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" [Matt. 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.²

Repentance is a continual action of the Christian. We are not done with repenting until our earthly remains are laid in our graves because we continue to sin every day and to earn God's wrath and displeasure because of our sinful condition. Thus, the Collect prays that we will continually repent so that we continue to receive God's pardon and forgiveness.

The Times of London [Wednesday, 27 January 2010] contained an interesting story about the late Pope John Paul II. A new book by a Vatican priest in charge of the canonization process [that is, the track to being declared a "saint" in the Roman Church] claims that John Paul II regularly whipped himself with a special belt he kept hanging on a clothes hanger. The writer, Monsignor Oder, said that John Paul claimed that self flagellation was "an instrument of Christian perfection" because it copied the sufferings of Christ. In 1986 John Paul wrote in his annual Letter to Priests that these forms of penance had the motives of "the love of God and the conversion of sinners."

At first one wonders why self-flagellation is still around until one realizes that in order to be declared a saint, John Paul must have exhibited "heroic virtues." Not only will miracles have to be done by him, but he must have extra virtues to share with others who pray to him. The self-flagellation provides the avenue because it is seen as "an instrument of Christian perfection," the article states.

How ironic that Luther confronted the same issue already in 1517! Luther himself had practice self-flagellation as a way of meriting God's forgiveness, as a way of earning God's favor. About his days in the monastery Luther wrote:

I myself was a monk for twenty years. I tortured myself with prayers, fasting, vigils, and freezing; the frost alone might have killed me. It caused me pain such as I will never inflict on myself again, even if I could. What else did I seek by doing this but God, who was supposed to note my strict observance of the monastic order and my austere life? I constantly walked in a dream and lived in real idolatry. For I did not believe in Christ; I regarded Him only as a severe and terrible Judge, portrayed as seated on a rainbow. Therefore I cast about for other intercessors, Mary and various other saints, also my own works and the merits of my order. And I did all this for the sake of God, not for money or goods. Nevertheless, this was heresy and idolatry, since I did not know Christ and did not seek in and through Him what I wanted.³

In the Smalkald Articles Luther wrote:

Here, as well, there was only pure misery and destitution. Some imagined that they would never get out of purgatory because, according to the ancient canons, each mortal sin carried with it seven years of penance. Still, confidence was placed in our work of satisfaction and, if the satisfaction could have been perfect, confidence would have been placed totally in it, and neither faith nor Christ would have been of any use. But such confidence was impossible. If they had done penance for a hundred years in this way, they would still not have known whether they had been penitent enough. This means always doing penance but never arriving at repentance.⁴

New and contrite hearts are what we need. We cannot continue the charade that everything is fine with God if we go through the motions without repenting. Luther writes further:

Accordingly, to repent is to feel seriously God's wrath because of sin, so that the sinner is troubled in his heart and plagued by a desire for salvation and for the mercy of God.⁵

Repentance happens when you are sorry that you have sinned, not merely that things have turned out badly, but that you have sinned against God and your neighbor, with the result that you can only cast yourself upon the mercy of God in Christ. It is to receive the gift of forgiveness in Christ. Forgiveness is bestowed on those who repent and believe in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Human merit plays no part in it. Whipping yourself does not earn God's favor, nor is it a proof of your love for God. It is merely self-indulgence.

Dear friends, the meaning of Holy Baptism lies in the daily dying and rising, confession and absolution. When that takes place, there the fruit of repentance appears, that is, "good works in every phase of life" [Apology XII.131]. In the coming weeks we shall investigate this more fully in our midweek Vespers. The good news is that God calls us to repentance and to faith in the merits of Christ for our forgiveness. Lent calls us to renewal of faith and life. Well do we pray each day,

"Create in us new and contrite hearts."

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

¹Martin Luther, vol. 31, Luther's Works, Vol. 31 : Career of the Reformer I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 31:17 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1957).
²Martin Luther, vol. 31, Luther's Works, Vol. 31 : Career of the Reformer I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 31:25 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1957).
³Martin Luther, vol. 24, Luther's Works, Vol. 24 : Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 14-16, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 24:23 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1961).
⁴Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 315 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).
⁵Martin Luther, vol. 5, Luther's Works, Vol. 5 : Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 26-30, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 5:154 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1968).