Ringwood Knox Lutheran Parish

where love comes to life

Ash Wednesday – God’s Valentine Love

14 February 2024 - Ash Wednesday

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6 As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,     and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true, 9 as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, 10 as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

New International Version - for other versions see BibleGateway.com

Read the text

Sermon - Ash Wednesday – God’s Valentine Love

Pastor Peter Ghalayini

Around the world today many people will be celebrating but most won’t be aware of the significance of what today brings to Christians – Ash Wednesday. Today, being 14th February, many people will be celebrating Valentines Day – the day when you express your love for the significant person in your life. Today, for God, he too is doing exactly that – expressing his love for the significant people in his life – you and me – the children of God.

Today begins again our Lenten journey where for the next 40 days we walk with Jesus to Calvary where he will give up his life because of his love for us – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him would perish but receive eternal life. So God’s love is expressed for the purpose of reconciliation. God created us because of his love and because of his love for us God created us with a “free will”. A free will that enabled us to either love God in return or to reject his love for us. But God wanted that love returned to him freely. But because of sin that love was fractured. Not God’s love for us – that never wavered. But our love was now challenged with competing gods as Paul highlights in Romans chapter one: They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

But God’s love for us never ceased as Paul points out in the verse prior to our reading where he says: That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And so our reading tonight begins with Paul pleading to us: We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So our Lenten journey is all about a journey into reconciliation which begins with Ash Wednesday tonight and ends on Easter Sunday when everything that has kept us apart from God is defeated – namely sin, death and the devil. And as St Paul will state – I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ash Wednesday commences the journey of a new beginning – the beginning of a journey that leads us to the joy and victory of Easter Sunday.  But let us also remember that the ashes, are a reminder of our mortality as Adam is reminded in Genesis 3 – Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

But the ashes are also a symbol of hope and redemption.  They are a call to embrace the love of God, who offers us a fresh start, a chance to be renewed in Him and to be reconciled. Paul urges us to keep the reality of our mortality ever before us.

We live in a generation where people think they are invincible and don’t think about death. But Paul reminds us of the reality of our mortality when he says: Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation! We don’t like to think about death – either our own or our loved ones. But since the beginning of creation through disobedience death is our reality. But thanks be to God who has given to us the victory over death through Jesus’ death AND resurrection. And has given us the hope that he is the resurrection and life and that whoever believes in him even though they die they shall live.

So, as we leave and begin our Lenten journey again this year, marked with the ashes in the sign of the cross upon our foreheads, let us carry the hope of Ash Wednesday in our hearts. The sign of the cross pointing us forward to the cross of Christ’s death for us and also back to our Baptism where the sign of the cross was first made in the waters of our baptism. May we be reminded daily of our mortality and the urgency to live each day in the fullness of God’s grace as TODAY is the day of our salvation. May we be reminded of our reconciliation each day as we drown our old self in the waters of baptism and rise renewed – reconciled in Christ. And may the Lenten season be a time of reflection, repentance, and renewed commitment to follow our Lord, Jesus Christ and be reconciled to God, who loved us so much that He gave His son’s life for us.

Let us journey together towards the resurrection, knowing that ultimately the ashes will lead us to Easter Sunday, where we will rejoice in the victory of our risen Saviour. Amen.