2.18.2015 Ash Wednesday Mark 1:1-13 John
baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River
The
Baptism of Jesus
Today
we begin the pilgrimage and discipline of Lent. With the Lord Jesus, we will
walk with Him observing His arrest, trial, passion, death and resurrection. On
this day, we come to God with the ashes of repentance and faith for a life that
will rise out of the ashes.
Mark begins his gospel with a bold confession.
Jesus is the Son of God. For him this is Gospel, good news. In accordance with
God’s past promises in the Old Testament, Mark quotes from Malachi and Isaiah
to show that John the Baptizer is the forerunner of the Messiah. He prepared
the way for Jesus by calling the people to repent, confess their sins, and be
baptized. In his preaching, John witnesses to Jesus as one greater than he and
as the one who would baptize with the Spirit.
Repentance is the necessary
preparation to celebrate Christ’s coming. Literally, it is a change of mind, a
re-direction of one’s life and a turning or a returning to God. Repentance
involves an awareness and confession of sins. Lent is a season of repentance
symbolized by the liturgical color used during the season – violet.
Yet we need to be careful that
we do not make repentance the good work, which will earn Christ’s coming into
our lives. By grace, Christ is coming but repentance opens us and makes it
possible for Christ to enter. In other words, grace precedes repentance, not
vice versa.[2]
Today, we come with the Ashes
of repentance. In the garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve fell headlong into
sin, the Lord God reminded our first parents of their new reality, “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 pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out
of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis
3:17-19 That is why today marks the beginning of Lent with the ashes of
repentance and faith with a hope of new life, which will come out of the ashes.
Repentance and faith are the two watch-words of the Christian faith. The two
are joined together on a day we call “Ash Wednesday.”
Almighty God, you have created me out of the
dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to me a sign of my mortality
and penitence that I may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we
are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ my Savior. Amen[3]
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