Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-3; Daniel 9:3
Theme: Ash Moments
Proposition: 1. There is a Time and Place for Ashes 2. God can Take Our Ashes and Transform into Beauty
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helen’s erupted. For nine straight hours over 540 million tons of ash fell over a 22,000 square mile area. That is a lot of ashes on a lot of ground.
For the next two weeks scientists found pieces of ash from Mt. Saint Helen’s all over the world. The ash that started from Mt. Saint Helen’s was found in the Artic, Antarctica, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Many of us here this morning saw video footage of the explosion that happened on Mt. Saint Helen’s that day. There were news reports about it for weeks.
+We saw pictures of the skies of Spokane, Washington some 350 miles away which were darkened for an entire day.
+We heard the story of how 57 people lost their lives along with thousands of wild animals and fish.
+We heard about thousands of people who were adversely impacted by the ashes affecting their vision and lungs for days, weeks and months.
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to see that much ash in the immediate sky. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have to breath with all that ash falling around you.
However, I can safely say that all of us have seen different kinds of ashes. We have seen the ashes that come from burning leaves, wood or coal. We have seen the ashes that come from a pipe or a cigarette. Some of us have even seen the ashes that have come from a pet or loved one.
Our passage this morning deals with the subject of ashes. It is what I would like for us to reflect on this morning.
I. There is a time when we all will have ashes in our lives.
Often when we think of ashes we think of a fire or the loss of someone or something.
In the Bible we find all kinds of people who dealt with ashes ranging from Abraham to Job to Esther to Daniel and others.
There were those who experienced such depths of sorrow that they didn’t know anything else to do but to cover their heads with ashes or sit in a pile of ashes.
+This is where we find Job in Job chapter two.
He had lost his children – seven sons and three daughters.
He had lost most of his servants and workhands.
He had lost all his livestock – his sheep, his oxen, his camels and his donkeys.
He had lost his health – he was covered with running ulcers from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
All he knew to do was to cover himself with ashes and sit in a pile of ashes. His whole world had been reduced to a pile of ashes.
+This is where we find David’s daughter Tamar in 2 Samuel chapter thirteen.
She had tried to take care of her half-brother Ammon who said that he was sick and had requested that she be his private nurse.
However, as you read the story it was all a lie. What really was happening was Ammon had fallen romantically for his sister and wanted her to sleep with him.
He was trying to find a way to get her alone. When he finally accomplished that task, he demanded that she sleep with him.
Tamar rejected his advances telling Ammon that such a thing should not happen in Israel. She told him that she wouldn’t sleep with him. In a fit of rage and rejection Ammon attacked Tamar. He molested her and then had his servant cast her aside like one would cast aside a discarded piece of trash.
Tamar then tears her multi-colored robe and covers herself in ashes. Her perfect life was over. In that day and time no one would accept her as their wife.
Thankfully, her full brother Absolom found her. He comforts her and allows her to come and live in his house where she stayed the rest of her life unmarried.
+This is where we find the Prophet Daniel in Daniel chapter nine.
Daniel is an old man. He has lived most of his life as an exile in the land of Babylon. His heart cries out to be able to return to his homeland of Israel. He begins to understand that he will never be able to go home. But he must do something to help those around him be able to return.
The only thing he knows to do is to become Israel’s intercessor. He states that he will set his face towards God, he will intercede for Israel, he will wear sack cloth and sit in pile of ashes in humility to see if God will forgive the people of their sins and allow them to go back to the Promise Land.
We don’t usually think of someone interceding for someone else this way. We don’t think of wearing sack cloth, covering ourselves in ashes and then sitting in those ashes begging God to forgive us, and all the ones around us for our sins.
+This is where we find the people of Nineveh in Jonah chapter three.
The people had heard Jonah’s message. They understood that unless they repented of their sins that they would be destroyed. Everything around them, their cities, their homes and their families would be destroyed.
And so, in Jonah chapter three from the greatest of them (the king) to the least of them (a servant), they put off their fine clothes, covered themselves in sack cloth and ashes and begged God for forgiveness and mercy.
Can you imagine a whole city, a capital city declaring that everyone is to wear sack cloth and ashes and cry out to God for mercy and grace. Promising God that they would turn from their wicked ways and follow Him?
+This is where we find Mordecai in Esther chapter four.
Mordecai, Esther’ uncle had just discovered that Haman had tricked the king into all writing a death sentence on all the Jews living in the Kingdom. Thousands of Jews would be put to death and everything they owned would be given to Haman and his followers.
Mordecai doesn’t know what to do so he does the only thing he knows to do – he puts on sack cloth and ashes and goes around the capital city crying out in pain. All over the kingdom others join him as they cry out to the LORD for salvation.
Sorrow, pain, loss, heartache, repentance and facing disaster all caused these and many others in the Old Testament to put on sackcloth and ashes and to cry out to God.
Many of us here this morning can sympathize with those wore ashes.
+For we have felt the paralyzing pain of losing a loved one – a spouse, a parent, a child or a friend.
We have sat by that bed either in a home or in a hospital and have watched someone’s physical lives slip away moment by moment. We have experienced that moment when we know that the person we have loved so much is no longer there and there is only a body left behind.
+We may have experienced a time when we were physically, emotionally or spiritually hurt by someone who at first said that they loved us only to be deeply wounded, betrayed, mistreated and or abused by them.
+We have or have known someone who has or is right now going through the fires of life. We have wondered what the other side would look like or if we would survive the other side – the loss of a job, a marriage, a friendship or the loss of our health.
There is a time for sack clothes and ashes even if today we don’t actually use sack cloths and ashes.
There is a time for sorrow, for pain, for loss and for seeking God for answers when there doesn’t seem to be answers.
One of the things about the stories and the people in the Bible is that they are real. There are heroes and there are villains. There are those who can bring about sunshine and rainbows but there are also those that bring heartache, sorrow and death.
We are invited to go to the mountain top with Elijah and Moses, but we are also to walk alongside King David, Tamar, Daniel and Job as they are overwhelmed by their grief, their pain, their sorrow and their loss.
We are invited to not deny our sorrow, our pain and/or our loss.
Instead, we are to understand that there are times we need to embrace the ashes that come into our lives.
We are to understand that while we don’t see ashes in the Garden of Gethsemane we do read where Jesus sweated drops of blood as his heart was broken.
We are to understand that while we don’t see ashes at the bottom of the cross, we only have to look up and see Jesus’ body covered with his own blood from the cat o-nine tails and from the nails in his wrists and feet.
We are to understand that while we don’t see Mary in sack cloth and ashes her heart is broken as she lays her eldest son Jesus in a borrowed tomb.
This morning, as your read the Bible – both the Old and New Testaments you understand that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY understands our pain. God understands our sorrow. And you are to understand that God sits in the ashes with us.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” - Hebrews 4:15-16
II. God not only understands but has made a way for our ashes to be able to be transformed into beauty.
The Hebrew word translated as beauty in our passage can also be translated as a crown or as a beautiful crown.
In other words, the LORD can take all the pain of our ashes and from them bring forth something that is beautiful.
One of the wonders of Mt. Saint Helen’s is that now after a little over 40 years there are all kinds of new trees, new flowers and new animals that are once again making Mt. Saint Helen’s their home.
Immediately following the eruption, a majority of scientist issued a warning that it might be a hundred or more years before we would see any life around the mountain. They believed that the lava along with the amount of ash and devastation would cause the mountain to be an eye sore for at least a hundred years or more.
But today, trees and plants are growing all around the mountain. Deer, black bears, mountain lions and other small animals are finding place to live and raise their families. You can still see a great deal of damage but amid all the damage there is life returning.
In the midst of the ashes new life is returning.
And what happens in nature the LORD says that He will bring into our lives.
We can experience a New Life taking place in the midst of our ashes/our heart aches and sorrows.
The New Normal may never be like what we experienced before. But God has a way of making a new normal be just as beautiful if not more beautiful.
The Patriarch Job experienced a New Normal. Job did not stay in his pile of ashes for the rest of his life. At the end of the book of Job we are told that the LORD provided Job with a house full of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Lord made it possible for Job to regain his wealth and honor.
I am sure that Job still ached over his children that were taken. I am sure he ached over those favorite workmen and their family that were lost. But I am also sure that his heart will filled with the laughter, the joy and the new life that surrounded him day after day after day.
Through Esther the people of Israel were saved and their worst enemy at the time was removed. The ashes of Mordecai were traded in as he became the third most important person in the Persian Kingdom and through his actions the people of Israel found peace, prosperity and protection.
The people of Nineveh were saved. Instead of a time of destruction they experienced a time of revival.
The Prophet Daniel did remain in Babylon. It is true that he never took another step in the Promise Land. But it is also true that his prayers were answered as he watched thousands of people pick up their belongings and return to the Promise Land. Daniel’s stories and his writings went back with them as they shared how the LORD had watched over them and protected them in the land of Babylon.
We don’t know the full story of Tamar. All we know is that she lived in the house of Absalom the rest of her life and oversaw Absolom’s daughter who had been named after Tamar. What could have ended up a complete tragedy ended up with a woman picking herself up out of the ashes and making a home for a young girl who had lost her mother.
It’s not easy to endure the ashes. It’s not a great deal of fun.
But I would venture to guess that everyone of us have at least one or more “sackcloth and ashes” story that we could share.
Those times when we were overwhelmed with sorrow, pain, loss and hurt. Those times when we didn’t know whether we would survive the fires that we were going through and how we would make it on the other side.
That is what I love about the stories in the Bible. For they show us the way.
Peter goes from the ashes of the night of betrayal to sharing the Message of Salvation on the Day of Pentecost.
Mary Magdalene goes from the ashes of throwing away her life and embracing all kinds of evil to finding a new way of loving and being the first human being to see the Risen Savior. Talk about trading in your ashes for beauty.
We shouldn’t and we will not minimize the pain and the suffering of our ash moments – our sorrow, our pain, the loss of a marriage, a spouse, a child or a friend. The loss of a job, the loss of our health or whatever that loss may mean.
We will not say that rising out of our ashes is always easy.
But we will say – that Jesus is here to do what He said he would do in this passage and in Luke 4:18-19:
18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
This morning, if you know of someone experiencing some ash moments – some sack cloth and ashes moments – then reach out to them. In some ways sit with them in their ashes. Pour out your love to them. Be there for them.
This morning, if you are going through those times please allow those who love you to be there for you. Don’t go through your sorrow, your pain, your heartache alone. You don’t have to, and you are not supposed to.
That is the beauty of the Church – that is the beauty of Our Risen Savior.
I can’t think of a better way to end our service today than receiving the Lord’s Supper.
I can’t think of a better way for us to end our service than to understand that in receiving the Lord’s Supper we do so with grace, mercy and healing. For it is a Table of Mercy, Grace and Healing.
So, I invite all of you that would like to come and receive God’s grace, His healing and His love.
The Sharing of Holy Communion
