God Relents of Disaster

Ash Wednesday and the Gospel Reading from Matthew 6

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the sixth chapter. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you fast, anoint your head, wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others, but your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret, He will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. O Lord, have mercy on us.

In the name of Jesus.

Death, Sin, and the Ashes of Mortality

Disaster.

That's a terrible word to say. We all know a thing or two about disasters. We talk about natural disasters. We talk about family disasters and disasters of all different kinds, right? But you're going to note here, how has sin worked out for all of y 'all?

Hasn't that been a complete disaster? And what it has done to our lives? And you'll note that y 'all have ashes on your foreheads, which reminds you of what? Of the words of God that He spoke to Adam in the garden.

You are dust, and to dust you shall return. You'll note that the wages of sin is death, and death has been a disaster. Sin has been a disaster. How many of you have ever met your great-great-great-grandparents?

Do you even know their names? I don't even know some of their names without having to look at Ancestry .com. And there are names that are missing in my family tree. Probably in yours too. You'll note that it takes a lot of vigilant work to figure out who you're related to and who your ancestors are.

And sometimes we're only able to get details going back on one or two branches, not much farther back. Isn't that a disaster if you think about it? People that you are flesh and blood relatives of, people you have descended from, whose stories you don't even know because you don't even know their names or where they're from or anybody that can remember them or any accounts written about them.

It's a complete disaster. When you think about what happens to us when we die, let me just put this bluntly. I know how the procedure goes. I've gone through the procedure a few times here at Kongsvinger.

You know what's going to happen? You're going to get sick. We're going to pray for you. You're going to get worse. And then finally, we're going to sit down with you, either in your home or in hospice, and we're going to walk you through the prayers of those, the commendation of the dying.

And then what's going to happen is you're going to die. Your family will mourn. Your friends will mourn. And those here at church will mourn for you. They will write an obituary. It will be roughly a paragraph and a half, two paragraphs long.

And then we're going to take your corpse and we're going to put you in the yard out there. And you know what's going to happen? The only thing that's going to be on there is your name and two dates, when you were born and when you died.

And all the people that know you will follow you. They'll be put into the yard as well. And eventually, memories of, you know, when Pastor Rosebro was pastor of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church will be long in the past, and nobody will be talking about any of us.

In fact, you might even be lucky enough to have your stone get moved or knocked over or whatever, and somebody, you know, get out one of those mower things and go, oh, wow, what's this? Who's Marilyn Matheson, right?

That's the kind of things we're talking about. It's a complete disaster, sin has been. But you'll note that God does not threaten us merely with the disaster of death. I mean, that would be bad enough.

But the real disaster that we've all faced is because of our sin, and that is the second death. Have you read the details on second death? You remember the movie like The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings?

You know, those hobbits, they had breakfast and then second breakfast and elevenses and stuff like this. There's death and then there's second death. Yeah, there's a second death, and the details of it are terrifying, and we've all earned second death, and second death is an eternity in hell, being punished for our sins.

Repentance, Fasting, and the Old Testament Pattern of Atonement

And so you'll note that when we come around to a penitential season, this follows a pattern from the Old Testament. As they were getting close to the day of atonement, God required the children of Israel to not come into his presence for the day of atonement, the holy convocation, without first afflicting themselves, prayer and fasting and lament over their own sins.

We do the same. We are getting ready to get to the season of our great day of atonement, the day that Christ was crucified for your sins and mine on the cross. And should we not, in memory and commemoration of that sacrifice, should we not anew consider our own sin?

Consider the sin that still so closely clings to us, that tangles us up in our course as Christians, that sin that you've, well, maybe you've just become somewhat comfortable with. You know, it says in Scripture, the words, to mortify our sinful flesh, but have you ever noticed that continual hostilities with your sinful flesh oftentimes are just exhausting?

Who can go an entire lifetime in warfare against their own sinful flesh? I've got to admit there's been times when I've wanted to just wave the white flag. And that's not what we're called to do. And so we consider then our Old Testament text.

And I also, I always like to throw in that alternate Old Testament text because it's so wonderful. Because here's the thing, when in the daily struggle against sin, against death, against Satan, and against the world, against all these forces of darkness that would lead us into death, you'll note that we all have that icky, creepy feeling, that feeling of foreboding that tells us what?

You know, I'm really not somebody who's got my act together. I still struggle with sin, and one has to wonder at times, is God going to really let me into heaven? Because I really haven't figured this Christianity thing out very well.

If by well, I mean totally mortifying my sinful flesh and living in victory over the temptations that hit me every day. That's not my lot. You'll note the Apostle Paul, that wasn't his either, the Apostle Paul lamented, he said, the things I want to do, I don't do.

The things I don't want to do, I keep on doing. Who will deliver me from this body of death? That sounds like something I could have written. Probably something you could have as well. But you'll note our Old Testament text has this.

Yet even now, declares Yahweh, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments. That's right. You'll note that oftentimes there's displays of repentance in the Old Testament where people have taken their clothes and torn them in half.

It's like God's saying, keep your clothes on. You paid good money for those things. I had to supply you with the ability to put on those clothes. Don't rip them up. Instead, rend your heart. Recognize that God's holy law demands perfection of you, and you haven't lived up to it.

And as a result of it, you have earned for yourself God's wrath. Oh, that's what it says at the close of the commandments. Read your catechism. But God says to us, return to the Lord your God.

Why?

He's gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and, oh, best words ever, he relents over disaster. You know, the disaster of death, the disaster of the second death that impends all of us.

Jonah, Nineveh, and God Relenting of Disaster

You'll note that every account in the Scriptures of people repenting upon hearing the word of God, they stand as examples to us, calling us to do the same, to repent. And, oh, it's the story of the Ninevites that just stands out here.

Over and again it cracks me up when you read the prophet Jonah. This is a fellow who was told by God to go preach repentance to Nineveh, a bunch of Assyrian war criminals, best way to think about it. Assyrians were so cruel in warfare that they make Hamas, they make the Nazis look like a bunch of amateur schoolgirls at best when it comes to warfare.

The Ninevites, these are people who when they attack the city and they finally overthrow that city, you know what they did when they overthrew that city? They gathered up all the men who fought against them, and then what they did is they put their bodies on a pike and then hauled their carcasses up in the air to basically stand as a warning.

You oppose us, you fight against us, this is what happens to people like that. And you'll note that the Geneva Convention wasn't around back then, and I can legitimately say taking captured soldiers and killing them and putting them up on a spike, that that is against the Geneva Convention.

That's cruelty that's not permitted in warfare. Ninevites didn't care. They were violent, bloodthirsty, awful, terrible people. If there was ever a group of people that deserved to go to hell, the whole lot of them deserve that.

But I would note they're not that much different than Minnesotans.

Okay.

Or North Dakotans. You guys are transplants now, right? Yeah, we've all earned God's wrath. So what does Jonah do when told by God to go and preach to the Ninevites? He says, no way, Jose. That's not actually what he said.

I don't think he spoke Spanish. Maybe internally he said, loco, kaktov, no, no, no, no good. Off he went to Tarshish, right? And of course we know how the story goes. There was a storm. They cast lots, asked what was going on.

He explained to them he was running away from Yahweh. They recognized the storm was because of him. And so they fed Jonah to the sea. Tossed him into the sea as a sacrifice. And a big fish came and swallowed him up.

I always think this is God's sense of humor. Because what an uncomfortable, miserable three days that had to have been. You know, how was he able to breathe? He has some kind of an air pocket. And let me tell you, the air pocket inside of a fish's gut cannot possibly smell good.

Right? This is where you pray for nose blindness to kick in quick. And after three days, there's this wonderful prayer where Jonah sounds like he's praying a prayer that Christ prayed when he was, after he had been crucified and died.

Seaweed wrapped around his head. And God resurrected poor Jonah and caused him to be fish vomit for a day. And one has to wonder, how many days or weeks did it take to get the smell out of his clothes, out of his hair, out of his beard?

Ugh.

But chapter 3 is our alternative text here. And here's what it says. The word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.

And you'll note that Jonah, second time around, was Johnny on the spot. He got a bus ticket immediately, right? Hopped on board that greyhound and head on down to Nineveh as he was supposed to. So he went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breath. And Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. What a great, interesting message.

Hmm.

That number 40 is kind of a big deal if you think about it. Forty days, forty nights, it rained on the earth and the flood came upon humanity. The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

Christ was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days. And here, 40 days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. You'll note then that 40 days makes it so that Jonah's message hits us today because we recognize that at the end of this 40 days, this wilderness time here for us on this planet, the entire earth will be overthrown.

Have you not read the book of Revelation? Have you not read Christ's Olivet Discourse? There is a day coming, and it's going to be at the end of these 40 days that our whole world will be overthrown because of sin.

Yeah, just look at the world outside and watch the news if you want to get depressed, and you can see the whole world has lost its ever-living mind. We've got to be closer to Jesus' return than ever.

Indeed we are. But 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And what did these brutal, violent war criminals who murdered so many men and people and widowed so many women and orphaned so many children, what did they do with the preaching of Jonah and this message of his?

They believed God. It just says that. The thing is that the Scriptures say that we all have the law of God written on our hearts,.

Every one of us.

This is the reason why we intuitively know what is good and what is evil. And with every murdered soldier, with every widow that they made, every orphan that they created, they knew that they were transgressing God's law that says you will not murder.

They were even acting against their own conscience in their own violence. And then hearing the real words of God from a real prophet of God, threatening them with punishment, they knew they deserved what God was going to give them.

So what did they do? They called a fast. They put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. And the word itself, the word of God, in the mouth of the prophet Jonah, reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, sat in ashes, and he issued a proclamation and published it through Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and then let them call out mightily to God.

Let everyone turn from his evil and from the violence in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. Isn't their story ours?

It's the same.

Whether you be a Minnesotan or a Ninevite, it's all the same. God's word has reached us and called to us and told us that we need to repent of our sins, to turn from our wicked ways, to cry out to God for mercy.

Who knows? Maybe God will relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. But here's the thing. This is where the gospel enters in, and we see it so clearly. You'll note that when it came to Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, who, although he was by God in nature, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.

He humbled himself, was born of the Virgin Mary, and he was obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross. Why? Because God, his wrath, didn't turn away from Jesus. God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and Jesus went to the cross and hung naked, bleeding, dying, having been scourged there in the darkness, hanging from the cross, struggling to breathe.

With each languishing breath, he experienced the full fury of God's wrath. It didn't turn away from Jesus on that day so that it might turn away from us. That's the point of the cross. God's fierce anger didn't turn away from Christ.

He bore your sins and my sins in his body on the tree, and he suffered for our sins. In fact, experience God's anger and wrath, God the Father himself turning away from the Son so that we would not perish.

This is why God is able to relent of the disaster he's threatened for all of us. And it says this, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said that he would do to them, and he did not do it.

And boy, did that make Jonah mad. He was really upset. In fact, Jonah went and had an adult temper tantrum and was legitimately just scolding God, saying, is this not what I told you? Is this not why I went to Tarshish and turned away?

Because I knew. What did he know? He knew that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and that God relents over disaster. Jonah didn't want to have to spend eternity with a bunch of forgiven Ninevites.

Even God's prophets need to be forgiven, right? But that's kind of the point Jesus himself affirms when he condemns the Pharisees and the scribes and the people of his age who didn't repent at his preaching.

He said that the men of Nineveh would rise up on the day of judgment and condemn Jesus' generation for not repenting. Christ affirms that these Ninevites are saved and that he not only relented of the disaster of overturning Nineveh at that time, he relented of the disaster of the second death for these Ninevites.

So brothers and sisters, though your sins be as scarlet, Christ has bled and died for you, and he clothes you and makes you white as snow. God is gracious, he is merciful, he is slow to anger, he is abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster for us because that disaster fell on Christ so that you and I can be forgiven and pardoned.

Lent, Repentance, and the Lord's Supper

So listen to the end of our Old Testament text. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering. I can't hear those words without hearing about the Lord's Supper.

Ah, Christ has bled and died for our sins. God has relented of the disaster and he has left us bread and wine, his body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. So blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people.

That's what we've done here tonight, this Ash Wednesday. We've called a solemn assembly, and do you know what? We have even little ones here, and that's the way it should be. Love the fact that we have small kids here on an Ash Wednesday service.

Yes!

Gather the children, even the infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests and the ministers of the Lord weep and say, Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach and a byword among the nations.

Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God? And of course, having seen his people repent, turn from their wickedness, cry out to him for mercy. What is God's response when that happens?

It's not the same as my mother's, thank God. When I go and apologize to my mother, I'm sorry, Mom, I was wrong.

You bet you were wrong.

That's not the right response, by the way. No, you don't get a scolding after you confess. What does God do? The Lord became jealous for his land, and he had pity on his people. And that's God for us.

He definitely is jealous for us now. He's had pity on us. So the Lord answered and said, Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil. You will be satisfied, and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.

Brothers and sisters, Lent is so precious. Repentance is the daily life of us as Christians. So as we draw near to Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday, let us embrace this Lenten tide. Let us embrace fasting and praying and devotion and self-denial.

These are good things as we reflect upon our sin. And let us, again, by the power of the Holy Spirit, cry out to God to have mercy on us and trust confidently in his forgiveness and kindness, because it is absolutely true.

God is slow to anger and abounding in said fast love, pardoning iniquity, and all of those things, because that's what Christ and that's what God is really like. And let us cast aside our sin, which so easily entangles us and mars our course, and let us press forward into the eternity that God has laid out for us and given us as a gift in Christ.

That's what the Lenten season is about. I have nothing more to say about it. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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And again, thank you for listening.