LENT: MAKE A U-TURN

(This is an abridged version of the Ash Wednesday sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 2/22/12)

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and God relents from sending punishment.” (Joel 2:12-13)

The road signs are familiar to many of us, and often serve as a point of frustration. “No U-Turns” – the signs say, and they serve as an indicator that it is impermissible to change directions and to go another way. Thus, we are forced to continue going in a direction that we do not choose to go. We want to turn around, but we are not allowed to do so.

Often life itself is similar to the times when we are driving in the wrong direction. If the truth is told, there are things that each of us needs to change and adjust in our lives – things that we need to turn around. This is the purpose of Lent for the church and the people of God. These forty days leading up to Easter afford each of us an opportunity to take stock of our lives, and the direction in which we are going, and to seek – with God’s help - to change course as necessary.

This is the place where the people of Israel found themselves in their own faith journey. Joel’s instructions to the people are found in these words:
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and God relents from sending punishment.” (Joel 2:12-13)

The context here is the wickedness and waywardness of the people of Israel – God’s people. They had strayed away from the ways of the Lord. The prophet’s message includes words of judgment and repentance. Joel here is urging the people of God to turn away from their sin, and turn back to God with their whole hearts - to make a U-turn.

For people of faith, to make a U-turn is to repent. Lent is really about repentance. Repentance calls each of us to turn away from sin and to turn back to God. To repent, in essence, is to turn around.

The message of Joel is as appropriate today as it was in his day. We look at the events that continue to take place around us. A look at our daily news clearly shows us that drugs and violence continue to ravage and demoralize our communities. Our society is increasing polarized along political, economic and racial lines. It seems that people are ever more likely to fuss and fight, than we are to seek peace with justice.

Our season of Lent, then begins with our acknowledgement that we have gone astray and need to make a U-turn in some aspect of life. This is to acknowledge as the apostle Paul reminds us that “we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And it is to live in the hope that ultimately, God loved us so much that as Paul also declares, “God demonstrated God’s love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

The good news is that with God, U-turns are indeed permitted. In-fact God wants us (wills and desires for us) to make a U-turn. It is at the point that we decide to turn around and turn back to God, that God’s forgiveness becomes real for us.

What are some of the things you need forgiveness for?

After encouraging the people of God to turn back to the Lord, Joel declares that the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Many people have become accustomed to giving something up during Lent as a form of self-sacrifice. But in as much as we might decide to give up some material things, Lent is also about journeying, and searching for God, and seek a closer walk with the Lord, with the hope and prayer that as we press our way toward Easter, there will be real signs of renewed life and resurrection for us.

In other words, the Lord desires to walk with us on this Lenten journey – as we make a U-turn.

It’s good to know that as we engage in this wilderness journey called Lent, Jesus also went on a journey like ours. We are told that Jesus lingered in the wilderness for 40 days. In the wilderness he got hungry and tired, and was tempted by Satan. But each time he got weak, the Lord looked to God, his father, for help.

They tell us that he bore an old-rugged cross at Calvary. We can imagine that the Lord wanted to give up… that he wanted to quit, as the burdens on his life got heavier and heavier.

But Jesus suffered, bled and died for you and me. Isaiah tells us that "he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of the world was upon him… and by his wounds we are healed.”

The good news is that he suffered, bled and died so that we might make U-turns in our lives.

At the cross, at the cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burdens of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith,
I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day…