2 March 2022
By Rev Dr Kenneth Mtata
Ash Wednesday Readings
· Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
· Isaiah 58:1-12 •
· Psalm 51:1-17 •
· 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 •
Verse of the day
“Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (Joel 2:13)
Today is Ash Wednesday. Christians of many traditions mark the beginning of the season of Lent with focused prayer, fasting and repentance. At the heart of Lent is the commemoration RETURNING to God. It is a season of celebrating the restoration our relationship with God which was made possible by the death of Jesus which paid for our guilt of sin and judgement and condemnation. This returning to God or Repentance is generally a misunderstood, unused, misused and underused idea. What exactly does repentance involve? How can we gain its great potential?
When the prophet Joel says “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near” (Joel 2:1), he is speaking in the plural, inviting all Israel and Judah to “rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD…” (Joel 2:13). When the Jewish people were confronted by a serious sinful situation, they would show remorse and a desire to repent by wearing “sackcloth, sit in ashes, and put ashes on top of his head” and go about wailing on top of their voices. They knew that sin of individuals or of a nation, destroyed the foundations of their relationship with God. Without God, they were exposed to many dangers. So when the king of Nineveh heard the piercing preaching of Jonah (Jonah 3:6) he was moved to repentance with sack clothes and ashes. When “Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry” (Esther 4:1). These were not just individual acts of personal remorse and repentance; these were not acts of individuals who were just emotional; these were actions of individuals and whole communities, that understood the implications of a sin and separation from God.
One person who knew the power of unrepented sin was David as he repents in Psalm 51. When he said: “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice” (Psalm 51:8), he meant that individual and collective sin took away joy and gladness. When he said, “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11), he meant that individual and collective sin separate people from God; the Spirit of God departs from them. When he said, “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you” (Psalm 51:13), he meant that, collective and individual sin destroyed the power for effectiveness proclamation of the word of God. When he said, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17), he meant that God honored and responds to true repentance.
The call here is towards true repentance because this external act of putting on sackcloth and ashes sometimes degenerated into just a show while deep down there was no real openness to change. People would act remorseful in public or in religious gatherings while in daily lives they lived in sin. Through Isaiah God therefore challenges them: “day after day you seek me and act as if you delight to know my ways; as if you were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; you ask of me righteous judgments; you delight to draw near to God. You even dare ask me: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why do we humble ourselves, yet you (God) do not notice?" (Then God responds): Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers” (Isaiah 58:52-53).
God wanted their sincerity when they fasted and prayed, yet they continued with broken relationships. So he says again: “Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high” (Isaiah 58:4). God is not impressed with external show of repentance: “Is such the fast that I choose, a day for you to feel sorry for yourselves? Is it a day to bow down your head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you think such is the fast acceptable to the LORD?” (Isaiah 58:5).
God did not accept external appearances of repentance when sin continued at personal and national levels. God rejected people who pretend to repent while they maintained the structures of oppression and injustice. What then was the fast and repentance acceptable to God? God answers this in the next two verses: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).
True repentance for God was not only some kind of personal feelings of guilt and sadness about some general wrongdoing. True repentance involved turning away both known and unknown sins, from personal failures (things we did wrong or things we left undone), systemic, or collective sin, and cosmic sin, as we reflected on some days ago. Repentance needed to be real and concrete. It could not be general. Sin needed to be confronted as it was. Repentance was supposed to translate into real changes of individual and collective behavior. Repentance was supposed to have both a vertical orientation (restoration of relationship with God) and horizontal effect (restoration and establishment of just and peaceful relationship among people). God wanted repentance that dealt with how individuals stood before God (righteousness) and how they stood before one another (justice). Without these concrete changes, repentance will not have happened even if people spent all their time before God in fast and prayer.
But what happened when individuals, families, churches, and nations truly repent? We see from our readings that God honored true repentance. In Isaiah 58, God promised that if repentance was truthful in restoring relationship with God and with one another: “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” (Isaiah 58:8-12).
These are powerful fruits of true repentance to be harvested by both individuals and the nation. True repentance leads to the: (a) restoration of hope (removal of darkness), (b) overcoming all enemies (vindicator goes), (c) healing of people and the land (bones strengthened), (d) liberation of the oppressed (removal of the yoke), (e) sustainable rebuilding (ruins raised for many generations), and (f) enjoyment of the continued presence of the Lord (unfading glory). True repentance would create a state of Shalom—total and wholistic peace with justice— where God dwelt among his people and his people enjoyed his renewing presence.
Friends this is what in store for true repentance of individuals, of families, churches and nations. Please let’s join together in a process of true repentance this lent season. Let us position ourselves to confront all forms of sin that may have broken our relationship with God and with one another. Let us enjoy the fruit of true repentance that God promises.
Let us Pray Psalm 51 together:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
So I give my body, soul and spirit as sacrifices before you God. I will not tore my clothes but also tore my heart because “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, you God, will not despise.” AMEN
No comments:
Write comments