I want you to get out your mirrors and look into them. No, not your compacts, ladies. I mean everyone. Your mirror is the Ten Commandments. They're on p.288 in the hymnal. Let's read them together...Those commandments are a mirror. They are not a pair of binoculars to spy on others so that you can see what sins other people are doing. They are a mirror so that you can look at them and see what you are. What do you see? Love God, His name and His Word? No. You don't. So look in the mirror and see the ashes on your head that tell you what you are: dead. Dust. Doomed. Do you honor your parents? Keep from harming others even with your words? Lust after those the Lord hasn't given you? Honor and love your spouse? Take what doesn't belong to you? Gossip and talk about others? Covet and daydream about things you don't have? No, you don't love your neighbor either. What does the mirror show? Ashes. You're dead. You're dust. You're doomed. This is the holy Law of God. Those who don't keep it will suffer everlasting death and judgment. That's what the Law says will happen.
But it gets worse. The Commandments don't condemn us because we don't keep some rules. As if God just said one day, “Hmm, what are ten rules I can come up with and smite people when the don't follow them?” No, the Ten Commandments condemn us because Jesus says that our hearts will be where our treasure is and the Ten Commandments show us where our treasure is NOT. God Gives us Himself. You want other things to be more important. God gives us His name. You don't pray and call upon it. He gives us His Word. You ignore, fail to study and grow in it. He gives us parents and children but we despise them and wish we had others. He gives us life, but we take it from others with our words and actions. He gives us our spouses but we lust after other people. He gives us our possessions but we try to take what doesn't belong to us and don't help others keep what is theirs. He gives us our reputation which we love to preserve while tearing down someone else's. He gives us contentment by promising to take care of us but we daydream and covet other things, always wanting more, never satisfied with what our Father in heave gives us. Get it? Our biggest problem is not that God gives us rules and we can't keep them. Our real problem is the Lord gives us an abundance of treasure in Himself and others and we could care less. We despise and want other things. And the punishment of the Ten Commandments is this: If you don't want the things God gives you, you don't have to have them. And you can spend eternity with yourself apart from God with all the others who don't want those things either. That's a pretty ugly face to see when we look in that mirror!
So the Lord gives every good thing to us and we love the things of this world more than Him. So He sentences us to turn back into dust. But there is love even in that curse. Look in the mirror. See the ashes? It's a reminder you will be dust again one day. It's a reminder that you won't last. That the things of this world won't last. The Lord teaches us in our sins that we cannot save ourselves. We can't cheat death or avoid it. And there is nothing we love so much on this earth that won't likewise pass away no matter what or who it is. The treasures of this world, our money and things and people, these get eaten by moths and rust and stolen and fade away. Ash Wednesday is the reminder that when you strip it down and take away all the things we love so much, other people, and the money and things of this world, and finally, most of all, ourselves, none of it can be relied upon. The only thing left is the Lord. If we would be saved, if we would be rescued from our sins, if we would overcome the death that awaits us, it's all on Him to do it and to save us.
Look in the mirror again. See the ashes? But what shape? The cross. The cross is the sign that God has done something about our sins. In the Old Testament, one of the sacrifices and ceremonies that took place was the making of the water of purification. To make the water of purification, the priest sacrificed a heifer, and burned it along with cedar wood, scarlet thread, and hyssop. The ashes of all this were then mixed with water, to be a water of purification. The symbolism and picture is obvious isn't it? Jesus, mocked in a scarlet, is then sacrificed on the wood of the cross to pay the price for our sins. The punishment that the Lord sets upon us for our sins—death--is the punishment He Himself undergoes for us. For us, who treasure everything else but what we should, our Savior Jesus makes His treasure this one thing: doing the will of His Father; saving sinners. Jesus treasures His Father because we don't. Jesus is the sacrifice that purifies us. The dust reminds us of death. But the ashes remind us of mercy. God's mercy to us through His Son Jesus Christ!
Just as the ashes of the heifer and the items were mixed with the water, so it is the sacrifice of Jesus, the blood He shed which is mixed with the water of the font to become a purifying water, a water that washes away sins. We have looked into the mirror of the Law and seen the ashes of our dust and death. What can take that away? What can save us? The Law doesn't make us pure and holy. It can't. It only shows us that we're not. So we wash with the water of purification. Washed in the water and word of Baptism. The words of Absolution. The Body and Blood of Christ's Supper. How can you be sure that the cures of death upon you has been lifted? That you will beat death? Because you're been purified by the blood of Christ. The font is open tonight. As you come up for the Sacrament, why not splash your fingers in that water and make the sign of the cross? Remember the waters of purification that have been made by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God for you. And, dare I suggest it? If some of that water is marked on your forehead and washes off your ashes? A reminder that through Holy Baptism we have the victory of our Lord over sin and death and the curse. A reminder that the treasure the Lord gives us in Holy Baptism is greater than any treasure that is passing away in this world!
So you check yourself in the mirror every day before you go to work or school or out and about. Hair combed, nothing in your teeth, right? Check yourself in the mirror of the Lord's commandments each day. And whatever sins and blemishes you find there, wash them off with the remembrance of your Baptism. In this way, learn to use the Ten Commandments to prepare yourself for confession of your sins. But learn also to use them as your treasure list, to daily see the good gifts the Lord gives you. Learn to see these commandments as the true and trustworthy guide in how the Lord wants you to live toward Him and toward others. And yes, doing that will eventually show you how ugly your sin makes you. So its more washing with the remembrance of Holy Baptism. And that's the Christian life, that we struggle against the sin which despises what God gives and are purified by the sacrifice of Jesus which takes away our sins. Ash Wednesday calls to mind our death and dust. But the purifying waters of Jesus triumph over that. So we can't help but say, “Happy Lent!” In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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