Ash Wednesday, March 5… “The Hand of the Lord… Who Freely Gives”

Psalm 102:1-13; 2 Corinthians 5:20–6:10; Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21

Hymns: #437 “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed”; #574 “Before the Throne of God Above”; #692 “Praise to You and Adoration”; #728 “How Firm a Foundation”

Dear Friends in Christ,

     Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

     I have a little experiment for you, to begin things today. Are you wearing something with a button? Tuck in your thumbs, pretend they aren’t there; now try to undo one of your buttons, or do one up again, without using your thumbs…

     Isn’t it great to have opposable thumbs? Because God has made us with the ability to do this (pinch thumb and index finger together), we can do all kinds of useful and wonderful things, like buttoning a button, or tying our shoes, or gripping a hammer to pound in a nail. Some say civilization was built on our ability to use our opposable thumbs.

     These hands of ours are amazing, a gift from the hand of God; but they’re ours to use as we will. God gave me these hands, but He’s left how I choose to make use of them up to me. “Free will,” we call that. Our hands can be used to do good: To build things, to create beauty, to help, or to console, or to comfort, or to give, or to open a Bible and read it. But this same hand can also be balled into a fist, and used to fight or to slap or to choke or to steal, or to wreck things - or to swear to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, while intending to tell a lie.

     In our Midweek worship, we’ll be watching the perfect and holy hands of Jesus. Jesus had real and human hands, hands like yours and mine; yet His hands were good enough and powerful enough to hold us, help us, and heal us, and to work always for our good.

     Ash Wednesday is about empty hands – our empty hands. “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to the cross I cling,” the old hymn says. We come before God with a “penitent confession” about what these hands of ours have done, or what they’ve failed to do. We come before God deserving no grace, no forgiveness, no mercy, deserving nothing but “sackcloth and ashes.”

     Yet Jesus in His mercy fills our empty hands, pours all the treasures of heaven on us, and honors our heart-felt confession with forgiveness and grace. And He takes us by the hand and lifts us up again. Here we are, tears on our faces, ashes on our foreheads, with broken hearts and broken spirits – and still we get to hear those blessed words from Jesus: “Take heart! Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.” And we get to leave this place, as St. Paul says, “reconciled to God.” That is, right with Him again, friends with Him again, held in the arms of His grace.

     And what do we do now, now that our empty hands have been filled? These hands are my hands – but now, by extension, they can be the hands of Jesus, too. He’s not physically present on earth today – one day soon, but not today; but what can we do with these hands of ours to show His hands to the world?

     Our hands, says Jesus in our Gospel reading, can do “acts of righteousness.” Not big, flashy, “Hey, look at me!” things for people to see, in the hope that we’ll be noticed and praised for it; there’s precious little value in that, Jesus says. But those quiet, little things our hands can do that the world may never notice – like helping a neighbor, giving someone a ride to church or to a doctor appointment, or helping someone whose hands don’t work so well anymore to button a button.

     And our hands can certainly give to the needy, in lots of different ways; and we should do that, because it’s right and necessary, and because our God asks us to. “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus says; and it’s always been the place of God’s Church on earth to help them. Disaster relief, Orphan Grain Train, our local food banks - all of them need our helping hands. And again, says Jesus, without “letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” without trumpets or fanfare or a need for recognition, or to have your picture taken handing over a check.

     Martin Luther wrote this about the Ten Commandments in the Large Catechism:

“I am of the opinion indeed that here one will find his hands full and will have enough to do to keep these commandments: meekness, patience, love toward enemies, chastity, kindness, and other such virtues and their implications. But such works are not of value and make no display in the world’s eyes. For these are not peculiar and proud works… They are common, everyday, household works that one neighbor can do for another.”

     And one of the best uses of these hands of ours, Jesus says, is to fold them in prayer. And again, not prayers said to be seen, or prayers done to put on a show. Public prayers, when we’re asked to do them (like giving an invocation at a community event or to open a public meeting) should be direct and to the point, and mercifully short, and always point to Jesus. (If they tell me I can’t mention Jesus, I’ll politely decline).

The best prayer, as Jesus says here, is me alone with my folded hands, talking to God, and God talking to me. “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective,” St. James says. “The power of a praying hand,” someone has called it.

     And the fasting Jesus talks about in our Gospel isn’t necessarily about going a day or two without food (although that wouldn’t hurt most of us). It’s more about giving up something of yours for the sake of someone else. It’s like giving up something for Lent, like some of us do. But not something trivial or shallow or temporary, like chocolate or video games; but something real, something that matters - like giving up a little bit of your time or your treasure for the sake of someone else. And again, as Jesus says, it’s not about putting on a sad face and letting everyone know, “Hey, look at me! I’m fasting!” It’s about getting your heart, and your hands, right with God.

     St. Paul, in 2nd Corinthians, calls us to commend ourselves to God in everything we do, “With weapons (that is, tool or implements) of righteousness in the right hand and in the left.” All well and good, and easy to say, until I remember that these hands of mine are connected to this sinful heart, and to this all-to-human head. Where do we get the weapons, the tools we need to “fight the good fight,” and to do what God would have us do with our hands, and not what the world or our hearts or our heads would lead us to do?

      We do come before God with empty hands, if we dare to approach Him at all; that’s what these ashes are meant to tell us. But then comes the blessed Good News that we’re held in the hands of the same Savior whose hands they once put the nails in. His hands do miracles. His hands turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. His hands can make all things new with just a touch. His hands turn hopelessness into grace, and death into life. We’re like old Job, sitting in the ash heap, out of hope and out of answers for our grief. And Jesus reaches out His hand, like He once reached out to Simon Peter as he was sinking beneath the waves, and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

     The treasures on earth that Jesus tells us about in our Gospel reading will slip through our fingers, no matter how tightly our hands try to hold them. Moth and rust destroy, Jesus says, thieves break in and steal; time and the years sneak in and take all our earthly treasures away. Even these bodies of ours are only temporary things, destined to be dust and ashes along with everything else in this world. The only treasures worth pursuing are the ones we can’t see or touch with our hands - “Faith, hope, and love,” St. Paul says. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” says Jesus. The hands always follow where the heart leads. Where the heart is right, the hands will be right, too.

     And so we pray: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” O sacred hands and heart of Jesus, stay with us, be with us; direct us, lead us, and guide us, and show us Your Way. Precious Lord, may we have hearts after Your own heart, and may our hands be Your hands, as we tell the world around us what Your hands can do. In Jesus’ name; Amen.