Sermon, March 5, 2003 (Ash Wednesday), by Rev. Art Wiese
During these weeks of Lent, we are going to focus on Jesus' "Seven Last Words from the Cross." They are important words for us. They give us clear insight into Jesus' suffering and death. They help us understand the purpose of his dying. And they speak to us about the measure of God's love. But, tonight we begin with another word. Tonight we focus on a word from a much earlier time. Tonight we consider a word of judgment spoken by God in response to humanity's original act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden. As soon as the man and the woman have fallen prey to the clever trick of the serpent, eaten from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and been discovered hiding amongst the trees, God pronounces a curse upon all the parties involved which concludes:
And to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:17-19)
It is a statement of reality, a reminder of mortality, a pronouncement of death. It is a word that we would probably rather avoid. Yet, it is a word of truth. "[Remember that] you are dust, and to dust you shall return." All of us will one day die. None of us will live forever. Apart from God, we are "lost and condemned sinners" who can do nothing to free ourselves from our bondage to sin and death. And like all words of truth, they hold up a mirror before us, so that we may see ourselves as we really are. We may not like what we see. We may want to close our eyes and ignore what we' re seeing. We may wish that we would wake from our dream and find that our reality has disappeared, but that is not likely to happen. It is a word that keeps us honest. Mark Twain once commenting on the human condition said, "I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead -- and not then until we have been dead years and years."
The effect of this mirror of death is to show us our need for Christ. We are sinful. We are mortal. We cannot save ourselves. We need Christ and we need Christ's death on the cross. It is the only way to salvation for a people who live under God's judgment. In his sermon on "Preparing to Die," Martin Luther wrote, "You must look at sin only within the picture of grace. The picture of grace is nothing else but that of Christ on the cross..How is that to be understood? Grace and mercy are there where Christ on the cross takes your sin from you, bears it for you, and destroys it. To believe this firmly, to keep it before your eyes and not to doubt it, means to view [this] picture of Christ and engrave it in yourself. Here sins are never sins, for here they are overcome and swallowed up in Christ. He takes your death upon himself and strangles it so that it may not harm you..Likewise, he also takes your sins upon himself and overcomes them with his righteousness out of sheer mercy..Never, therefore, let this be erased from your vision. Seek yourself only in Christ and not in yourself and you will find yourself in him eternally."
That's why we take this season to focus our attention on the cross of Christ. That's why we will take the next six weeks to concentrate on his last words from the cross. That's why we will hear again of God's love and grace expressed through the suffering and death of God's beloved Son. In those words, there is power. In those words, there is love. In those words, there is grace. In those words, there is the promise of life. And in those words, there is victory over "sin, death and the power of the devil." In a world which seems every day to be plagued again and again by sin, death and the presence of evil, I hope you will hear the words of our Lord from the cross, which call us again and again from dust to life.
Amen.