March 1, 2017
Stetson Memorial UMC
Ash Wednesday
Sermon Series:
“God Shaped Hole…”
“Where Is the Love”
Inspired by Marcia McPhee’s
Looking For Love…
Joel 2:12-17
Matthew 6:1-6; 16-21
“Where is the Love”
Prayer of illumination….
How fitting it is that we begin our Lenten
journey in ashes…the thought brings us back to the reality it’s not about
us…Titus tells us that it is not by what we do that we are saved but by God’s
grace we are redeemed. As we enter this time of Lent, we remember that it is a
time of self-reflection, a time when our hearts turn towards the journey to the
cross, a time when we ponder on the gift that God so freely gives to you and to
me…the gift of redemption and forgiveness wrapped in a cross on top of a hill
from so long ago. As I reflect on my life and walk with God I am reminded by
the reading from Joel that it is not the outside that God is concerned with, it
is not my outward appearance but the appearance of my heart…how is it really with my soul. God is waiting for
the day when all of His creation turns back to Him as He had planned for it to
be from the very beginning.
It is hard at times to know exactly what to do
and what not to do during the Lenten season. Do I fast? Do I decide to give up
something or do I not…? Should I tell all my friends or do I not tell them?
Even though how hard it may be…I think that Matthew has something to tell us
about this whole fasting thing. It is found in Matthew 6 verses 1-6 and 16
through 21 that I read tonight. During Lent we are not sure if we should add
something to our “daily walk” with God…it
is always a daily walk but during this season we seem to concentrate more on
it… There is a danger of adding too much and we want to show how religious
we are to those who are around us…all this addition and subtraction can make
our heads explode…but then you have to add in the multiplying that we may feel
we need to do…take on more projects, do more than our share of different new
and improved things that will make us super Lenten warriors , and the like,
only to wind up frustrated and overtired and not even sure what this whole Lent
thing is about…It becomes all about us and what we do and less about what God
did, has done and continues to do…
This journey of Lent is a journey of
repentance…we are turning around so that we might bin in a right relationship
with God. We are turning back to a love that we once had…returning to our first
love. As we turn back to our first love…that God shaped hole is filled once
again.
But at times it is hard. We get so lost that
we just keep grabbing onto what feels like a good fit only to realize that we
are trying to fit a square shape into a God shaped…heart shaped hole. What is
it that we are really looking for? Are we looking for love in all the wrong
places and failing miserably?
As we share this Lenten journey with one
another, I would like to invite all of you on a journey to the heart of the
matter…finding that perfectly, God shaped thing we are missing. I would like to
invite you to a time of looking at what will fill that hole so that we can help
others find their way to the place of turning around so that they too will be
on the road to God’s own heart.
The
Lenten journey is our journey of reflection and hope…it’s the road…our means of
access…we travel to the destination at the end of our 40 day journey. The place
where God showed His greatest compassion and mercy…the place where He gave His
Son to die in our stead so that we may have life renewed and redeemed…the foot
of the Cross of Calvary. It is good that we begin in ashes for it is by ashes
we were made and to ashes we will return. Wednesday’s ashes…God transformed
into the beauty of the cross for me and for you.
Amen.
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