Preached on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Phillip Lienau.
Joel 2:1-2,12-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Psalm 103:8-14
Aschermittwoch, by Karl Spitzweg
Lent is for Easter. Let me say that again. Lent is for Easter. Today, Ash Wednesday, and all during Lent, we are preparing for resurrection. I invite you to hold before you the joy of resurrection, and remember, each day of Lent, that this joy is the goal.
In a few minutes, we will hear a short text in the Book of Common Prayer, on page 264, called the Invitation to the Observance of a Holy Lent. That text reminds us that Lent grew out of early Christian practices of preparation for the great celebration at Easter of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. Lent is for Easter. Lent is not for itself. If you observe Lent without looking toward Easter, you may possibly experience some useful “self-examination and repentance”, as the Invitation puts it; but unless the goal is a richer, more joy-filled celebration of Easter, it will not be particularly important for our shared Christian life.
It is similar to how Paul teaches us that we can do good works in the world, and they will be good, but for them to be part of the Lord’s work, we must do these things with love. Similarly, you can improve yourself, gain valuable perspective about what’s important, but it is vital that that perspective be grounded in the story of God’s loving work in the world and in our lives.
Lent is for Easter. Lent is for Easter the way cleaning your home is for hospitality. You might clean your home for yourself. That’s good. You might clean your home because it’s therapeutic to do so, or you get good exercise doing it. That’s good too. But the best reason to clean your home is connected to our tradition all the way from Sarah and Abraham hosting their holy visitors to Peter and Paul figuring out how to break bread with non-Jewish followers of Christ. The best reason to clean your home is hospitality.
If cleaning is for hospitality the way Lent is for Easter, let’s think about whom you’re looking forward to hosting. You are hosting Christ. Now, let’s be clear. God is with you, and in you, no matter what, whether you are preparing yourself for that or not. So really, what your hosting is your own admission that you are made in the image of God, and are called to follow Christ, and let the light of Christ shine through you, in your actions, and in your prayers. So in a way, you are cleaning, preparing, to better, more fully, more purely, host the Christ-light within you.
And the cleaning to be done — it’s all the stuff inside of us that obscures our relationship with God. That’s why Lent focuses so much on admission of sins. Our sins obscure, distract from, our loving relationship with God. We are not good hosts to the Christ-light within if we do not address our sins.
But remember: Lent is for Easter. When we pay attention to our sins, including during Lent, the point is not that we are sinful, but that God is merciful and forgiving. At the same time, mercy and forgiveness only lead to restored relationship when the person who has sinned owns up to that. God is merciful, but we have our part to play too. The wonder and the gift of free will is that just as we are free to sin, we are also responsible for using our faculties for introspection, telling the truth about ourselves and our failings, and admitting when we need help from God to restore our relationships. Our freedom comes with responsibility. Cleaning is for hospitality. Freedom is for the restoration of right relationships. Lent is for Easter.
Back to cleaning. If Lent is for Easter, and cleaning is for hospitality, the cleaning should be done with the forthcoming joyful gathering in mind. This is one way to hear Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel. He says, “…whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting… But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face…” In other words, let not your fast be for itself, for show either for yourself or others. Let your Lenten fast be the cleaning, the preparation, for feasting, for hospitality, for resurrection.
Jesus says, “…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If your treasure is being proud of your self-punishment for your sins, then your heart is not in repentance, but in pride. If your treasure is in despair because of your wretchedness before God, then your heart is in nihilism, not in the Christian faith in a merciful and loving God.
Shortly we will be invited to receive a mark of ashes. The words said during this are: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” To be dust is nothing shameful. As we hear in Genesis, “…God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” God made the Earth, the dust, and it was good.
When we say, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” yes, you can reasonably hear a message about your mortality. That might be a useful thought to ponder in the work of Lenten cleaning in preparation for Easter feasting. That’s good. But I hope you might hear another message too, something like this: Remember that you are part of God’s good creation, that you belong to God, that you are utterly dependent on God and God’s mercy, and that in the end, one way or another, you will return to your true self in God. Remember that “in the beginning was the Word… and without him not one thing came into being.” You only exist because Christ was in the beginning, was with God, and was God. To Christ you belong, and to Christ’s loving embrace you shall return.
In this context, then, the work of Lent is to cast off all that keeps you back from the love of Christ. This can be hard work. This can be deeply personal, and sometimes lonely work. But one of the many beauties of Lent is that the Church has set aside this time for all of us to do this work. So if during Lent you are feeling weighed down by the work, please reach out. And if you ever wonder if anyone else could possibly be as sinful as you, we only need to look to Scripture to find people who sin greatly, and to find how merciful and loving God nonetheless is, when true repentance and restoration of relationship is sought. Just think of Paul, our patron, for instance.
As always, but especially during Lent, I recommend to you the Rite of Reconciliation, found in the Book of Common Prayer, starting on page 446. Please feel free to reach out to Fr. Stephen or myself about this. If a BCP rite seems a bit much for the work you have in mind, we are available to meet with you more informally.
Remember, you are not alone. Today’s liturgy, and throughout Lent, it may sometimes seem that we are each only on own in our work. It is true that we each need to take personal responsibility for our own sins. But so much of the work of reconciliation is a communal matter. In fact, in the Rite of Reconciliation, the priest is acting on behalf of the community, and best reconciliation is that which restores our common relationship as the Body of Christ. Yes, today is about you and God, but it is also, importantly, about us and God, and us and each other.
You are for God. We are for each other, in Christ. Lent is for Easter.