Ash Wednesday - February 18, 2026

26:33 God of mercy, as we enter into Lent, may your spirit guide us to places we might not necessarily want to go. We turn to you because you, O Lord, have the words of life. Help us to hear what you have to say and grant us the courage to live it out. This we pray in Christ's name. Amen. repent and thou shall be saved.

27:04 Is that what you came here to hear today? I mean, is life going well with you? When you look out at the world, is it as it should be? Do you find yourself crying out to God in fear or because of injustice? Do you hope that God would finally come and fix all that is broken? You wonder, when will the day of the Lord get here so that we can have peace and justice for all? be careful what you wish for the prophet Joel proclaims that the day of the Lord is coming and is near however he goes on to describe the day as one of darkness and gloom on that day there will be a great and powerful army but it is not to bring liberation and freedom to the oppressed.

28:16 To be sure, this dark is not the cool, mysterious kind of anti-hero dressed in black. It is what you would ordinarily associate with darkness, doom. In his essay in Connections, Warren Carter describes this day.

28:42 Truly, the day of the Lord is great, terrible indeed. Who can endure it? This army seems to be metaphorical. It is an unparalleled, apocalyptic army bringing judgment. Joel sees it. Can his listeners? He warns them, the enemy is on its way, and the enemy is God. God is attacking God's people in judgment. He surmises that you might even know the experience of God, the enemy, of being overrun by God's army of disease, family crisis, financial ruin, the daily news, professional sabotage. You might know the experience of feeling judged, punished, condemned, whether it is merited or not.

29:44 did you ever blame God for such things did you ever reluctantly interpret or accept that this was just perhaps justified punishment for disobedience a curse for breaking covenant with God The Old Testament provides many examples of the consequences for such actions like disaster, panic, frustration, and even defeat before your enemies. We just concluded a sermon series, Shall We Long Endure, and explored the question of whether this nation has the constitution and moral compass that will enable us to endure. Did we make examination holding the Bible in one hand with historical American documents in the other because we were doing so well?

30:48 No. We were concerned. The division and vitriol between the people of the nation and between the people and the governmental authorities seems to be part of the Lord's dark army. Is it judgment? Is it a curse? The frightening thing is, it totally could be. Thankfully, judgment and curses are not the final word. There is guidance and pattern in the good book to show us that a repentance will mean blessing instead of a curse. A course correction will change everything. the lord calls us to return to god we're even provided with the manner in which to return with fasting with weeping and with mourning given the directive we can perform the acts to demonstrate that we are repenting we are denying ourselves of certain food or drinks we are abstaining from television or social media.

32:13 In many ways, Lent is a way we can restart the resolutions to live a healthier life that we made back on New Year's Day, only this time with religious motivation. What will you give up for Lent? Sweets? Meats? Alcohol? Netflix? TikTok? then we can share what we're giving up and complain about it with others who are doing similarly.

32:43 I mean, there are good benefits that come from fasting from such things. At dinner last night, I asked my kids to consider what they might fast from in Lent. And they gave me the, oh, you're so annoying, Dad, look. but I pressed on saying we think we can't live without a wide variety of things but it is God that we can't live without when we fast the pain of that loss reminds us to pray and think of God to remove the prayer from the fast is to simply torture ourselves That would be the equivalent of simply rending our clothing, but not our hearts. The goal is both.

33:43 That is why along with the methods of repentance, we get the ethos, rend your hearts and not your clothing. We are called to repent, but in the way that God wants. when we fast and pray it helps us return our focus to god that is at the heart of repentance when we repent we change our mind we change our direction we turn back to god from the things that distracted us.

34:25 In her book, The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th century spiritual reformer, compares the human personality to a castle that has many rooms, and one of these rooms contains the image of God. My former professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Dionysius Allen, uses that allegory to explain in his book Quest, although we live in the castle, many of us never live in that particular room. Rather, we have smeared it with dirt and in other ways defaced it. When we look at each other and at ourselves in moments of honest self-examination, what we see often disappoints us and sometimes even revolts us because we do not see the image of God but only the way we have defaced it.

35:27 Even though we are not living the life for which God made us, we are able to do so. Teresa of Avila tells us that the entrance to that room is prayer. when the almighty is displeased with how god's people are living out their covenant a curse is used as a means of course correction makes sense right do something wrong and there's a punishment the punishment serves as a vehicle to teach a lesson connect before you correct that has become one of the most important impactful phrases in my parenting journey regrettably for my kids i only recently learned it and i've certainly not perfected its execution but better late than never right connect before you correct means to establish an emotional bond safety and understanding with a person before addressing their behavior or offering correction while it seems very obvious it is a challenging practice mainly because power and authority can be so intoxicating As a father, I find it so simple to stand on the philosophical principle of do it because I said so.

37:03 Other similar principles include my house, my rules, and till you pay, do as I say. From the parent side, it is a seemingly powerful tool of coercion to gain compliance. Of course, from the child's side, the punitive discipline and lack of empathy doesn't build a relationship in the healthiest of ways. do we feel like this with our heavenly father does god do the same with us with the curses are we given orders from on high that we follow so we can avoid the consequences of divine retribution would it eventually get to the point that we will like a rebellious adolescent say, I don't care, I'm not doing it. However, God connects before God corrects. Jesus is how.

38:08 Dr. Allen explains, unlike us, Jesus actually lived the kind of life God intends all of us to live. He realizes or actualizes the image. This is why attention to his earthly life is so important. We see in him what we are expected to become but have not become. Indeed we have so injured ourselves that we cannot become like Jesus without help. We are dependent upon God. It is only by calling on God that we are unable to pierce the darkness that so pervades our hearts and minds that we are unable to receive the truth of what we and others are.

38:54 Jesus is the light that overcomes the dark. The truth that gets distorted is that God is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting in punishment. God is and wants to be as such with you. God is gracious and merciful to you. God is slow in getting angry with you. God abounds in steadfast love to you.

39:32 God relents from punishing you. Thank you. Let that land. once that does we can slowly start to believe that god is the same with the other person you know the person the one who doesn't look like you think like you or act like you God then calls you, me, and the others to gather as a community to worship. No matter the age, no matter the life circumstances, they are to get together. For what? To fast, to repent, to worship, and then intercede for the world. verse 17 of our passage says between the vestibule and the altar let the priests the ministers of the lord weep let them say spare your people oh lord the vestibule the narthex to the altar what should be done let them say spare your people but that's not my job pastor you're the priest the minister that's your job fair but according to the good book it is your job peter reminds us of this when he writes in first peter 2 9 but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. You are a part of God's priesthood. You are a part of God's healing of this world. You are tasked with asking God to spare those people. Again, you know who those people are. They're the ones you seriously

41:39 don't like. They are the ones who make this world worse than people like maybe you would. And you are tasked with beseeching God to spare them rather than destroy them. remember you are dust and to dust you will return repent and believe in the gospel this is a phrase that is often said during the imposition of the ashes and that other person if they are here or at another church will hear the same thing the ashes connect us all to one another. we are finite beings. Our time on earth is limited.

42:34 Empathic to the reality that life is short, we are poised to make corrections. But what is it that we would choose to correct? I propose it must be the gospel. Not my gospel truth, but the good news of Jesus Christ. He has indeed saved us. As we have been spared, we are gathered to be inspired and live together despite whether or not we vote the same way on whatever issue. your desire and objective may be to change the other person and to correct the other person but change is God's job we do not direct God on what to change people to God changes us as deemed right by our creator redeemer and sustainer as God is working to change you from curse to blessing.

43:37 Trust that God is doing the same good work in the other person. That is the good book's reframe providing the challenge and journey of Lent. May it be so. In the name of the Father and of the Son.