May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you, O Lord. Amen.
Ash Wednesday is a significant and meaningful day in the Church's calendar. A bit later on in the service we will be reminded quite clearly that we are but dust and that we will return to dust one day.
It is not hard to recognize that this reference about dust points to physical death. And it does not stop just there.
Ash Wednesday actually kicks off an entire season – The season of Lent – where we constantly seem to be thinking about our sins. We ask God to create a new heart in us and that he would move us to worthily lament our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness.
I admit, that all this talk about death, dust, sins and wretchedness might sound really awful at times. Let's be honest...
How easy is it for us to worthily lament our sins given the fact that we see ourselves as pretty decent people?
Before I go any further, let us therefore first look at what sin really is:
Sin does not equal being bad in general.
Sin simply means that we have missed the mark. We have missed the mark of obedience, the mark of holiness. Scripture tells us that God wants us to be holy as He is holy.
So sin really means that we have turned aside either deliberately, or wandered away unintentionally from consistent and complete obedience to God.
It does not really matter how we ended up here.
The point is, that we have missed the mark somewhere along the way.
The mark for obedience and holiness which God has set before us is Jesus.
And when I think about this definition of sin, I can very readily admit in my heart that I have often missed the mark (even though I might have a hard time to admit this to anyone else).
For some reason, human beings have the tendency to hide their sins and to mask their weaknesses as strengths. We have a tendency to point our finger only at others while covering up our own shortcomings.
This is so different to how God deals with sin. In the reading from the book of Isaiah we note that God is very upfront about sin. We hide it, but He wants to declare it. "Raise your voice like a trumpet", God instructs Isaiah as he prepares to confront an entire nation about their sin. "Shout!", God says.
Awareness of sins is very crucial in God's eyes because He knows, that if we do not recognize our sins and get rid of them that we fail to be right with the holy God we serve. What we need to understand is that holiness and sinfulness are repellant to each other. This is why God makes such a huge deal about admitting our sinfulness...
And not only that(!) but he also makes a huge deal about seeking true repentance. Repentance meaning that we resolve within ourselves to turn away from sinful habits and ways.
In God's eyes, it does not suffice just to know about sin because If we know about our own sins but do nothing about it we live in rebellion to God. That is why He wants to declare it to us loud and clear.
From Isaiah's text we learn that fasting, prayer, worship and sacrifice
are a great offense to God when they are not accompanied with a life of justice, love, mercy & kindness. We must walk the talk. There is no way around it:
Just loving God is not enough. We also must love people.
Every single day – consistently. We must be in the habit of loving.
We need to remember though that being right with God is not just about that. It is not just about confessing our sins and about making sure that we walk the talk.
More than anything else it is about embracing and counting upon Jesus' overflowing grace for us and for this world. Only when we depend on Jesus' grace are we able to have any success in "walking the talk".
The passage from John's gospel speaks to about this very thing.
In fact, Jesus was so much known for being gracious towards sinners that this was the very thing the Pharisees and Scribes tried to trip him with. They brought a difficult legal question to Jesus regarding what should be done with an adulteress. Under Jewish law she would deserve death.
In their view Jesus had only two options to deal with this issue:
Either, Jesus would side with the adulteress and take the stand that she should be forgiven. As a consequence he would appear to approve of sexual immorality, or at least not regard it as serious.
The other option would be that he would approve of her death and get into conflict with Roman law which denied Jews the power to pass or carry out a death sentence. Either way, the Pharisees and Scribes figured, they would win because finally they would be able to get Jesus out of their way. They were so fed up with Jesus who constantly and publicly challenged them. They were fed up even to the extend that they were willing to use especially cruel and heartless ways.
Instead of taking the "orderly" approach and arresting the woman and bringing the case to Jesus, they chose to drag this woman to the temple and to push her into the crowd where Jesus was teaching. They publicly humiliated her. Her emotions as she is publicly condemned did not matter to them at all. All they ask Jesus for is a "just" verdict (or so it seems at least).
Interestingly, all the while one question remains unanswered: Where is the man? Where is the man this woman committed adultery with? Jewish law foresees a punishment not just for the woman but also for the man. Yet, in some mysterious way only the woman is presented before to Jesus.
Astonishingly, instead of focusing on the woman's sin, Jesus focused on her accusers' sins. "Let those without sin throw the first stone", Jesus said. With these words he exposed to them their own heart's burning desire to punish the sins of others while completely ignoring their own sins. We should note here that Jesus did not stare her accusers down.
He did not give them that condemning look, lecture them or intimidate them with an angry voice. He just simply left them to their own conscience. He left them to reflect upon their own sinfulness.
A very short period of reflection was enough for them to recognize that they were no better than her but also full of sin. One by one, they left.
How liberating that must have been for those remaining in the crowd to see that one by one people were leaving. They must have been relieved to know that not just them, but everyone else had also missed the mark.
And finally, as both of them were alone Jesus spoke directly to the woman:
"Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"
And she said, "No one, Lord."
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared.
"Go now and leave your life of sin."
He declared to her the forgiveness of her sins AND he said: "Turn away from a life of sin. Turn back to God."
Jesus did not eradicate the earthly consequence of her sin. Very likely, she would have to go home to her husband and would have to deal with the pain she has caused but, she had a choice about the way forward.
Today, we are faced with the same choice. Like the accusers of the woman we have the choice to reflect upon our own sinfulness. And like the woman we have the choice to get right with God again. We can strive to clean up the mess in our life and choose the path of holiness.
And if we do, Jesus will certainly help us to overcome any temptation.
And struggle which comes our way. We cannot and do not have to rely on ourselves to make it. Even though we are far away from God's standards and even though we for sure will miss the mark also in the future, we can depend on God and his Holy Spirit to perfect us in holiness – One step at a time.
Let us pray that this season of reflection will help us to recognize our own sinfulness and God help us to rely upon him to consistently choose the right path forward.
Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will transform and empower us to fulfill the heavenly call to bring Christ's light into a world which does not know about Jesus' forgiveness, grace and powerful love.
Amen.
Archana Jacob