Sermon For Ash Wednesday Year C
February 17, 2010
Texts:  Psalm 103:8-13; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; John 20:22-23
Supplemental Reading:  Luther’s Large Catechism “Exhortation to Confession”

Have you ever felt the burden of carrying around
Something you did wrong.
Something you know that you shouldn’t have done.

May be it started out to be a good idea
That somehow just went wrong
Or maybe you were just so angry about something
That your reactions got out in front of your common sense,
Or maybe you were tired
And you just did or said something you later regretted.

In the dark recesses of our hearts,
Most of us,
If we are honest with our selves,
Have carried around some burden like this.
You may even still be carrying it.

Sometimes carrying around these burdens
Actually affects our mental and physical health.

Headaches, stomach problems, high blood pressure
Can all be a side effect of unrelieved stress.
The stress may be related to wrongs
That we are carrying in our hearts.

For a long time Rolaids had a commercial that asked
“How do you spell relief”

Now Rolaids might be a good way
To soothe the stomach problems
That result from unresolved burdens,
But Rolaids can’t give the relief
That comes from getting rid of the burden of a sin.

So how do you get relief?

While Jesus was alive,
There were numerous occasions when he healed people
Often the healing was accomplished through the forgiveness of sins.

You may remember the story in the Gospel of Luke,
When friends brought a man to be healed by Jesus.
They couldn’t get in the door of the house where Jesus was preaching,
So they dropped the man, along with his mat, through the roof.

When Jesus went to heal the man,
He said “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
After parrying back and forth with the Pharisees,
Over the power to forgive sins,
Jesus then told the man to get up and walk.
And he got up and walked away, carrying his mat.

When Jesus returned to earth briefly,
Following his resurrection,
He wanted to equip his disciples
With the ability to heal and forgive sins.

He wanted this power to be available
Long after he had returned to his father.

In this evening’s Gospel reading,
We heard words from John’s Gospel
In which Jesus gives the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit
And charges them that if they forgive the sins of any person,
Their sins are indeed forgiven,
And if the disciples don’t forgive them,
The person is stuck with the sins.

This text is one of the Scriptural bases
For our liturgical practice of Confession and Forgiveness.

In the reading from The Large Catechism,
Luther described the two parts of confession.
In the first part, you tell God what you have done wrong.
You are doing this as part of the process of unburdening yourself.

You do not have to name every possible sin,
Rather you confess that you know that you are by nature sinful,
And then confess specifically the things that are particularly burdensome to you.

God knows that you are sinful, so you are not telling God anything new!
You are not confessing for God’s sake but for your own.

After you confess your sins,
You receive a forgiveness from God,
But spoken by another human being—usually the pastor.

As Luther words it
“If there is a heart that feels its sin and desires comfort
It has here a sure refuge where it finds and hears God’s Word
Because through a human being, God looses and absolves from sin.”

In the Lutheran Church there are two different rites of Confession and Forgiveness.

The first is the public confession and forgiveness,
That we use to open many of our worship services.

In the first half of this rite,
We reflect privately on our sins
While, together as a group, we confess our sinfulness to God.

The confession is followed
By an acknowledgement of the forgiveness
That is granted by Christ
And spoken by the pastor.

The other option for forgiveness of sins
Is a private confession.
In this, an individual meets with the pastor
One-on-one
And expresses a specific burdensome sin.

The pastor then grants a forgiveness of the sin
In Jesus’ name. 

In either case, the forgiveness granted,
Is an eternal forgiveness
Which has to do with making us right with God.

This forgiveness opens the door
To our making amends with our neighbor or the community.

Often in a private confession,
The pastor will do follow on work with the person,
Encouraging him or her to reconcile
With anyone harmed the sin.

Luther links baptism and confession,
Because as he writes in the Small Catechism,
As a baptized Christian, when you confess your sins to God,
A new person rises daily from the waters of baptism,
To live in righteousness before God. 
As a baptized Christian,
You can spell relief
As C-O-N-F-E-S-S-I-O-N. 

You confess, you are unburdened and you are forgiven.
You can think about it as a new you
Popping up,  still dripping baptismal water. 

On this Ash Wednesday night,
As we enter the time of Lent,
You will be invited,
Along with the rest of the assembly,
To confess your sins.

After the confession,
You will be invited to come forward to receive ashes
On your forehead or your hand if you prefer.

The ashes, which are a sign of both repentance and purity,
Are marked in the sign of the cross.
This is the same cross with which you were marked at baptism.
The same cross with which God claimed you as God’s child. 

This cross is a sign of how much God loves you
And a sign of the forgiveness that God gives you daily,
As you remember your baptism
And remember who you are and whose you are.