If you don’t, it’s a show on ABC that tells the story of a trio of siblings who grew up in Pittsburgh, and with each episode, you learn a little bit more about them, about their lives as adults, and about their childhoods. One of the three, Randall, is adopted, and eventually meets his birth father William, who is dying from cancer. In a recent episode, Randall and William take a roadtrip to Memphis, and when a dying William gets back to his boyhood home, he goes straight to the fireplace lintel, pulling out a loose brick because he wanted to see “if his treasure was still there.” From the dusty cubbyhole, he pulled out the treasure — two toys and three quarters — he had hidden behind that brick as a child.
The treasure had survived all those years between his birth and his impending death. His life had turned out differently than he had planned or imagined, because of different obstacles, circumstances and choices, but the treasure remained.
I wanted to tell you about William and his treasure because Ash Wednesday invites you to return home to God,
to receive ashes on your forehead and be reminded, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Your mortality, or death, is certain. But, so is your treasure.
It may be hidden from sight, masked by years of trying to be strong enough, happy enough or wealthy enough.
Or it may lie beneath shards of broken relationships, crumbling dreams, or other distractions and disappointments.
But behind or beneath the sin that is part of our human condition lies your identity as a beloved child of God.
Our greatest treasure is the relationship each of us has with God.
Lent lets us return to God, recognizing how we have become distant and disconnected. These forty days give us time and space to confess our sins, “engaging in a more deliberate time of reflection and penitence.”[i] “Recognizing our utter dependence on God,” we receive God’s forgiveness.[ii]
In his small catechism, Martin Luther writes:
“Confession consists of two parts. One is that we confess our sins. The other is that we receive the absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God himself, and by no means doubt but firmly believe that our sins are thereby forgiven by God in heaven.”
God not only saves us from our sins, but also gives us new life, acting on the promised re-creation and redemption that we hear in Psalm 51.[iii] God delights in seeing us renewed and reaching again for God, and God empowers us, strengthens us and sustains us in the midst of life.
The words from the prophet Isaiah challenge us to remember that God sees us and our piety – our outward behaviors – and our hearts and innermost thoughts. “Sin is not a surface wound; rather it is a penetrating sickness that… [infects] the very core of our being.”[iv] So keeping up appearances is not enough.
God promises when we truly align our hearts with God’s own self, then we will experience light breaking forth, healing springing up and the Lord shepherding and guiding us continually. The prophet says:
“The Lord will 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.” (v. 11)
Participating in God’s life, we will know “the reassuring presence of God, an assurance that in risk and in danger, we are not alone.”[v]
Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber from House for All Saints and Sinners in Denver describes Ash Wednesday this way:
If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and we don’t know the distance between the two, then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle and the ends are held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet. ‘The water and words from our baptism plus the earth and words from our funerals have come from the past and future to meet us in the present.This Lent, let us return to God in confession and return to the building blocks of our faith, studying Scripture and Luther’s Small Catechism and reconnecting with God as the creator and renewer of our faith.
And in that meeting we are reminded of the promises of God: That we are God’s, that there is no sin, no darkness, and yes, no grave that God will not come to find us in and love us back to life. That where two or more are gathered, Christ is with us. These promises outlast our earthly bodies and the limits of time.
Let us pray….
Holy God,
We give you thanks and praise, for in your kindness and mercy, your patience and faithfulness, you are always ready to forgive and not punish.
We thank you for the example our savior and brother, Jesus Christ, by whose strength we resist all evil, seeking instead to store up treasure in heaven, knowing that though we may seem to have nothing, in purity, knowledge, patience and kindness, we really possess everything.
Amen.
[i] “Psalm 51.” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2.
[ii] ibid
[iii] ibid
[iv] ibid
[v] Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah, Chapters 40-66. 190.
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