- Psalmody: Wisdom 11:23a, 24b, 23c; Liturgical Text; Psalm 57:1a; Psalm 57:1a, 3a; Psalm 103:10; 79:8-9; Psalm 30:1–2; Psalm 1:2b, 3b
- Lection: Joel 2:12–19; 2 Peter 1:2–11; Matthew 6:16-21
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?” These words immediately precede what we heard from the prophet Joel, and if you go all the way back to the beginning of chapter two in his prophecy, you will encounter more strong language that portrays how sin and sinners shall shake as an earthquake at encountering the terrible Day of the Lord, and as such is a warning for all who hear now. The Holy One of Israel and sin do not mix and He shall take great and gruesome measures to be done away with it once and for all at His glorious return. That is why the sin in us is so irritating and frustrating, because it is at such odds with the LORD our God and has no choice but to be purged one way or another from among us. It is unfortunate and all-out unnecessary that sinners perish with and in their sin on the Day of His Coming, for He gives solemn words for us now to hear, believe, and act upon; words of mercy, discipline, and hope, even in the midst of our sin.
Thus says the LORD God: “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Sin, repentance, and regeneration are all matters of the heart, which the LORD God seeks for us to address in Lent, especially on this day when we heap ashes upon our heads. His words by the prophet Joel show that the matters of the heart being quickened again from its cold, stony lifelessness is no trifle matter, but one that is to make its way outward from within. Fasting, weeping, and mourning are specific outward fruit which the Almighty One uses to show that our whole person He desires to have for Himself in godly repentance and life. Let us consider these three outward marks so that we may follow them back to our own hearts in deep Lenten self-reflection.
Turn to Me…with mourning. In ancient times, especially in the cultures rooted in God and the chosen people that He gathered around Himself, mourning was more ritualistic than how we imagine it now as simply inner grief of heart, mind, and emotion. Mourning was closely tied to death and to the bereavement of the living in its wake, to when calamity befell an individual, a family, or a whole community, or to when bad and severe news was heard. Certain prescribed customs, common to the Israelites and to the other peoples of the ancient Near East, were then observed, such as rending one’s clothes, walking barefoot and covering one’s head, girding one’s loins with sackcloth, and placing ashes on one’s head. The mourner would abstain from washing his feet, trimming his beard, washing his clothes, from anointing himself with oil, and maybe even abstaining altogether from meat and wine as Daniel did in the Captivity. All were clear outward expressions of what was happening to the heart. May our outward reaction in life reveal our heart’s sorrow over our sin, that we believe it as serious a matter as our own physical death and more. In faith, the body shall be raised again in victory over sin and death. Yet in unbelief, eternal mourning awaits those in body and soul who die the second death of condemnation. Dear Lord, ever guard and keep us from perishing!
Turn to Me…with weeping. Water gushing from our eyes is an interesting human phenomenon, is it not? That what we feel within can cause our own bodies to flood our faces from its own wells of water that seem to be bottomless and ready to pour out endless buckets in times of deep pain and sorrow. But weeping is also a blessed coping gift given to us by God, knowing that a ‘good cry’ does one good. The LORD desires the same intensity and seriousness to be tied to our sorrow over the sharpness of sin that darkens our hearts. His heart is grieved by our sin, especially when we as sinners reject Him and choose to remain in sin, to think little of it, to not repent of it, to not embrace His heart along with His Fatherly rebuke. For He says, “‘As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die!’” The wages of sin is death, thus the deathly sin of our hearts is worthy of our sincere tears more than the worst news to be heard elsewhere upon the earth.
Turn to Me…with fasting. A good number of us weep well, depending on circumstance. We don’t mourn as the ancients, but in times of deep grief, it is still possible to look at someone and tell the heartache being experienced. But fasting has become a lost discipline for us, especially in a culture saturated with excruciating bounty, feasting, and pleasures. Why is it that the LORD includes fasting in this short list so closely tied to turning to Him with all the heart? It is because fasting addresses the heart by means of the stomach and the will. If we have been made temples of the Holy Spirit, been washed by Him in regeneration and renewal, and have had our heart of stone plucked out of the soil and a heart of true, living flesh planted within unto life everlasting, then it is our whole person that has been redeemed, body and soul. The sinful flesh is at odds with this goodness, for the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. The regenerate heart wills to do good and the flesh evil. Thus, we strive, by fasting, to gain more self-control, a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Fasting is not a sacrament, a means of grace, by which we receive from God the promise of the forgiveness of sins. Yet it is a spiritual discipline that helps us fight the war against sin. Fasting, something not explicitly commanded, yet, still expected by God as a holy weapon in our battle against the lustful flesh, is an area in our spiritual lives where we can safely train in doing a good work. Consider what fasting is. We voluntarily keep ourselves from eating. Why? We do it because we know that the hunger of the flesh will soon come, and when it does, we take command over it by saying “My fleshly desire shall not rule over my will. I choose to rule over my flesh, not my flesh over me. It shall not kill me not to eat right now. I am no starving dog, no impulsive animal, no beast of the field, but a redeemed child of God who is not in bondage to the flesh.” What this practice of fasting does is it builds up the strength of the sanctified, godly will of the new heart, in a safe, voluntary environment of our own making, so that when true temptation of the flesh comes upon us unwelcomed, our tried and tested will through the discipline of fasting is likely to stand stronger and firmer in the moment and our likelihood of victory is greater. Fasting is the self-training that prepare us for the truly dangerous encounters that we face. Trying to fast and failing in it is no sin, which is why it is a safe and most beneficial practice. Only gains can be made from fasting, because any failure can be used as motivation for more dedicated training, and thus greater strength to be able to stand when needed.
You need not fast as Jesus did for 40 days in the wilderness. Examine your life instead and see where you are prone to quickly answer any call or grumble that your stomach makes and aim to bring it under your control. Maybe this Lent, commit to cutting out snacking, keeping your eating restricted only to the designated meals of the day. You may also cut out all sugar, because sugar is one of the severest, most addictive enemies of the body, especially in our day where it’s in everything. If snacking or sugary foods aren’t a weakness for you, then step up to fasting from a whole meal on certain days throughout Lent. A great opportunity for that is to have no breakfast on Sunday mornings so that the first meal on the Lord’s Day is the Lord’s Body and Blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Ask me more if you’d like to hear other traditional practices of fasting or other ideas about how you could add this spiritual and bodily discipline to your life for the strengthening of your will and faith.
Dear sinners redeemed in Christ, the focus is the heart, where your will resides; the fact that by Christ’s shed blood yours has been washed clean and made alive unto eternity; and the fact that in this age we still have much god-pleasing effort to put into guarding and strengthening our hearts against sin and evil desires. Take up the training, turn to Him with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; things that do not take the place of what the LORD desires, but accompany it. He desires your heart having given you His own in full measure in the treasure of His Son. In His Name, the trumpet is blown in Zion, a fast is consecrated, a sacred assembly is called; the people are gathered, the congregation sanctified with words from the Holy One and from His Holy Supper from which you never need fast. All so that you turn to Him with all our heart, not as whipped little dogs, but as serious and seriously-loved children. “So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.”
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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