Biblical Words [702]
In
a world darkened by sin, prayers of confession and penance are the acceptable
sacrifices to God.
The second great cycle of holy days in the
Christian year (Lent to Pentecost) begins with Ash Wednesday, which opens the season of Lent.
Lent is a 40-day period of self-examination –
by communities as well as persons – of contrition for sin, and of repentance,
all leading up to the supreme act of divine self-giving which is the focus of
Passion week.
Lent can be understood as an imitation of
Jesus’ fasting for forty days in preparation for the proclamation of the Reign
of God in Galilee (Mark 1:12-13). As
such, Lent is a time of facing temptation, of struggling with the evils that
lure away from the call of God, a time of solitude in the wilderness stripped
of indulgences, distractions, and misdirections of the crowded, busy
world. A solitude, however, in which
angels may “wait upon” the servant-in-preparation.
If we take its
meaning from the readings offered by the Lectionary, here is what Ash
Wednesday does:
·
It awakens us to a darkness that looms over a self-contented world, a
threat to an existence alienated from the realm of the Holy One (Prophetic
reading).
·
It calls forth the most profound recognition of sin in the depths of the
human soul – but also of the nature of forgiveness (Psalm).
·
It builds on the human need for reconciliation to God (Epistle),
·
It envisions an authentic devotional life that has its end in God rather
than human vanities (Gospel).
The prophetic reading presents a great crisis that has come upon
the community – the very Day of
the Lord, “a day of darkness and
gloom” (verse 2,
Though scholars have long recognized that the
prophet envisions a terribly severe locust plague, the oracles seem
deliberately vague and ominous. The
horror impending is not entirely natural. It has overtones of eschatological
warfare.
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
The psychological and spiritual tone is of
ultimate doom. All personal and communal
reality is under this shadow. Nothing
else matters.
The appropriate human response is
repentance.
Yet even now, says the Lord,
Fasting here is an act showing sorrow, sorrow
for alienation from God. Only a return to God can lead to relief, a
return by all the social body caught in the doom of separation from the source
of holiness.
Fasting, not eating for a day, is an external
sign of emptiness, of the absence of God from the depths of the soul, communal
and personal.
Psalm 51:1-17.
This psalm selection is the quintessential
text for Ash Wednesday. It is the
most profound personal confession of sin in the psalms. [On “Lament” psalms in general, see the Special Note below.]
The power and profundity of Psalm 51 stand on
their own. Read it, carefully and
thoughtfully, preferably in more than one translation. Only a few features of the reading will be
noticed here.
The language of
sin and forgiveness. The psalm speaks of “transgressions,”
“iniquity,” and “sin” (singular) and uses verbs “to sin” and “to do evil.” For purposes of this psalm, these are all
synonyms. “Against you, you alone, have
I sinned…” (verse 4). The personal
relation to God has been alienated by the sin, transgressions, and
iniquity.
The speaker affirms that sin is a kind of
power that threatens one’s whole existence.
It extends back to conception and birth.
“I was born guilty, / a sinner when my mother conceived me” (verse 5,
A variety of images is used for God’s forgiving
sin. “Blot out transgressions” views
sins as tracks in the sand where the sinner has violated a boundary
(transgressed / trespassed), and forgiveness means that these tracks are erased
– removing evidence that one stepped over the line. “Wash me from my iniquity” is scrubbing off
dirt and filth from one’s body and garments.
“Cleanse me from my sin” is a ritual
expression, meaning to purify someone or something that has become “unclean”
and thus is denied access to sacred precincts, to the holy place, even to the
divine presence. An extension of this
last image is, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (verse 7). Hyssop was the branch of a shrub that was
used as a brush to sprinkle holy water or blood in ritual settings (Leviticus
14:4 and
Expressing a more personal action by God are
“wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,” “hide your face from my sins,” and,
“let the bones that you have crushed rejoice,” that is, let there be a wholly
new recovery of my health and wholeness before you!
The climax of praying for forgiveness,
however, is the plea for full
personal transformation.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
A final argument for why God should forgive
and renew this person is the
witness it will create among
others. “O Lord, open my lips, / and my
mouth will declare your praise.” Then,
the speaker declares, a true offering will be made to God.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken
spirit;
That final declaration is the essential
message of Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent.
II Corinthians 5:20b-6:10.
The epistle reading begins, “We entreat you
on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (
Reconciliation
to God is the long-range goal of
self-examination, of sorrow for sins, of confession of emptiness apart from
God, and of trust in the promise of forgiveness.
There follows a remarkable statement of the
divine action in Christ. The statement
is a little clumsy but is the more striking for that reason. Very literally it reads, “The one knowing no
sin [Christ], … he [God] made sin, in order that we might become the
righteousness of God in him” (verse 21).
The expression “Christ was made sin” probably
plays on the double meaning of the Hebrew word for sin (hattā’t). This same Hebrew
word means both a sinful condition and a sin-offering that removes that
condition.
Sinners bring a sin-offering to the altar
which the priest sacrifices for them and they are freed of their sinful
condition. That is how the ritual cult
worked. Paul is saying that Christ went
to the altar (read “cross”) as a sin-offering on our behalf. Therefore, as long as we are “in him”
(included in the effect of his sacrifice) we live in the benefit of that
sin-offering and are reconciled to God.
In the remainder of the passage Paul
elaborates on the roles of the apostles as “ambassadors” of Christ (5:20a),
ambassadors who bring to sinners the message that reconciliation is
available. He emphasizes the great
hardships and acts of self-denial that the ambassadors of Christ go through in
this work for God (6:4-10), an emphasis that we will leave for another day’s
discussion. (The Lectionary dwells on
these trials of the apostle in the early Pentecost season of year B.)
The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday is
subordinate to the prayer of confession in the psalm.
This selection from the Sermon on the Mount
warns against conspicuous consumption in religion – against
public displays when one practices charity (verses 2-4), prays in public
(verses 5-6), and when one fasts (verses 16-18). Such religiousness for public consumption is
its own reward. It leaves the relation
of God and sinner unaltered (though does one ever really know?).
What must be sought instead is something that
makes a difference in heaven, not just in the media or neighbors’ gossip, not
just accumulating earthly credits (verses 19-21). In a word, true religion – “the sacrifice
acceptable to God” (Psalm 51:17) – is not about externals, but about the inner
being, about “a clean heart” and “a new and right spirit within.”
One may take ashes on one’s forehead at the
Ash Wednesday service, but what counts is the awareness of the darkness in the
world and in oneself – the darkness exposed by the proclamation of the Day of
the Lord, and illuminated only by the promise of God’s forgiveness.
Special Note:
The Lament Psalms.
The “lament”
psalms are all arguments for the
defense, arguments by the accused.
The speakers are in trouble of some kind, in a
cultural world in which troubles are seen as accusations of wrong doing. (The conclusion argued by Job’s
“friends.”) The speakers in the lament
psalms are pleading before the high judge to deliver them from this
trouble.
The arguments and rhetorical strategies
developed in a particular lament psalm depend on the source of the
trouble. What has caused the ruin and
agony that make the speaker groan and moan before God? Whose fault is it?
There are three possibilities.
(1) Most commonly, the trouble is caused by
enemies, that is, by others.
These are the prayers of the falsely accused righteous ones, and the
prayer asks God to deliver one from the enemies (and sometimes damn those
enemies pretty thoroughly). Psalm 7 is a
striking example.
(2) Less commonly, the trouble is caused by oneself. The speaker is the cause of his
or her own trouble, which in some way or another is sin. It is especially sin against God, but may
include sin against others. These are
the “penitential” psalms, confessing sin and begging for forgiveness, rather
than calling for the destruction of one’s enemies, though accusations against
enemies are sometimes thrown in for good measure. Christian tradition has identified seven such
“penitentials”: 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143, but the
greatest of these is psalm 51.
(3) Very occasionally the cause of the
speaker’s trouble may be God, which poses a very delicate problem for the
speaker of a lament. (It is necessary to
indict the judge!)
In this situation, the speaker’s misery leads
to desperate and daring accusations.
I am silent; I do not open my mouth,
This complex type of accusation is at least
hinted at in
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