Ash Wednesday
**Please note this service is based on the format of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Canada. Unless otherwise indicated, all prayers come from
Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW). Hymns and other prayers have been sourced
to give appropriate credit.
**NRSV translation used for the readings, unless otherwise stated.
Gathering Song
– Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross (ELW #335)
Greeting
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Almighty and
ever-living God, you hate nothing you have made, and you forgive the sins of
all who are penitent. Create in us new and honest hearts, so that, truly
repenting of our sins, we may receive from you, the God of all mercy, full
pardon and forgiveness through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Readings
A reading from the
book of Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Blow the trumpet in
Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the
inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is
near—
a day of darkness
and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness
spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;
their like has
never been from of old,
nor will be again after them
in ages to come.
Yet even now, says
the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with
weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord,
your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether
he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering
and a drink offering
for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in
Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn
assembly;
gather the people.
Sanctify the
congregation;
assemble the aged;
gather the
children,
even infants at the breast.
Let the bridegroom
leave his room,
and the bride her canopy.
Between the
vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
weep.
Let them say,
“Spare your people, O Lord,
and do not make your heritage a mockery,
a byword among the nations.
Why should it be
said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
The word of the
Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Psalm 51:1-17
Have mercy on me, O
God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you
alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass
judgment.
Indeed, I was born
guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in
my secret heart.
Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have
crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from
my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right
spirit within me.
Do not cast me away
from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing
spirit.
Then I will teach
transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud
of your deliverance.
O Lord, open my
lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt
offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice
acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you
will not despise.
A reading from the second
letter from Paul to the Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
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.
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace
of God in vain. For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and
on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We
are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our
ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way:
through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings,
imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge,
patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the
power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the
left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as
impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and
see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing
everything.
The word of the
Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Gospel Acclamation – Alleluia
The Lord be with
you.
And also with you.
The Holy Gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. 6:1-6, 16-21
Glory to you, O Lord.
“Beware of practicing your piety
before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from
your Father in heaven.
“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised
by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give
alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that
your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward
you.
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to
stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be
seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever
you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in
secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for
they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I
tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your
head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by
your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward
you.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do
not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.
The Gospel of
Christ.
Praise to you, O Lord.
Sermon
Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from the Triune God. Amen.
Ash
Wednesday serves as a solemn reminder of human mortality and the need for
reconciliation with God and marks the beginning of the penitential Lenten
season.
Looking
back into history, it was the practice in Rome for penitents and grievous
sinners to begin their period of public penance on the first day of Lent in
preparation for their restoration to the sacrament of the Eucharist.
They
were sprinkled with ashes, dressed in sackcloth, and obliged to remain apart
until they were reconciled with the Christian community on Maundy Thursday, the
Thursday before Easter.
It
was a public display of their penitence.
These
practices have since gone by the wayside, replaced instead by the symbolism of
placing ashes on the forehead.
We
may no longer be in sackcloths or segregated from each other but attending an
Ash Wednesday service and having ashes marked on our forehead remains a public
announcement to the world that we have moved into a time of reflection and
penitence.
And yet, today’s reading from Matthew seems to indicate that we need to be invisible.
If you are going to be
pious, give alms, pray, fast…
Do so in private.
Don’t announce it to
the world.
Don’t be obvious about
it.
Be invisible.
Hide.
Is Matthew telling us to disguise the fact that we are Christian?
Is he telling us to hide who we are?
Not at all.
Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were the three pillars of piety for a devout Jew.
And all three acts of piety can easily be transformed to be acts of self-glorification.
All three acts of piety can be done not to glorify God but to glorify one’s self.
The issue becomes one of motive.
Many pious and devout Jews were doing the right thing but for the wrong reason.
There is always the temptation for religious people to demonstrate their religiosity in order to receive praise, affirmation, and applause.
Christians are no exception.
And that is what Matthew is wanting us to avoid.
Matthew wants us to beware of practicing our piety before others in order to be seen by them.
Instead, practice piety because you believe it brings you into a closer relationship with God.
Evangelize by living out the Christian life without expecting praise in return.
Do so because you know it to be the right thing to do, not because you want a reward from God or from others.
The purpose of tonight’s text is to inspire us to give and act out of our hearts, without any expectation of reward.
When Jesus Christ lives in our hearts, our acts of charity, devotion, and love are real, not phony.
They are genuine not fake.
They come from unselfish motives with no expectation of any external reward.
Jesus wants us to let our lights shine that others might see our good works of love, but we are not to show off our works of love.
Don’t do things in order to be a hero or receive praise, but just because the person in front of you needs love. That’s what it is all about.
Announce your Christianity to the World! But do it quietly. And without expectation of anything in return.
Tonight is a night where we aren’t meant to be quiet. We become visible to the world by donning ashes on our forehead.
My colleague, Pastor Erik Parker, says that ashes are a symbol that blow away in the wind, that washes off without a problem, and that disappear as easily as they appear.
He says that the world is ashes, the signs and symbols of sin and death are all around us:
·
The pandemic
·
The convoy protests
· The war in Ukraine
The ashes may be temporary, but they reveal what is underneath the sign they mark;
The mark of the one who has claimed us,
The sign of the one who will not leave us, even in death,
The cross of the one who turns ashes into something new, who turns us into something new.
The world is ashes, it is in ashes. Can you feel it?
There is division in the world, in our country. Our hearts crumble as we listen to the news, as we follow events on social media, and maybe even as we listen to friends and family.
But we have the Gospel of truth and hope. We have the message that from the ashes something new will be born and the phoenix of a new world will rise.
As Christians, as Lutherans and Anglicans, not only do we need to be a part of it, but we need to lead the way.
The following is from a joint statement from the bishops of MNO Synod, Diocese of Rupert’s Land, and Diocese of Brandon:
God is speaking, the Spirit is sighing deeply, and the Body of Christ is compelled to prayer and prepares to act to relieve suffering. The Church in every age has responded to God’s call to pray and work for peace. As the church, the Body of Christ, moves through the marketplace and side streets, it is a sign of God’s holy and healing presence, a responsibility the gospel compels us to take up.
Let us pray and work for understanding, relief, and compassion in our communities.
Let us recommit ourselves to the work of reconciliation which Jesus has shown us through the Gospel stories.
Let us work to dispel fear, and then draw people into healthy interdependent relationships where we can act locally to make a global difference.
On this Ash Wednesday, may God’s gracious love guide us into Lent and deeper trust as we follow Jesus.
Our faith practices are not about us or what others might think. Jesus commands us to practice our faith in ways that focus on God, not ourselves.
Jesus calls us to share our practices with God.
Tonight, as we accept the sign of the cross on our foreheads, let us remember that we are Christians, and they will know us by our love.
Amen.
Hymn of the Day
– Lamb of God, Your Only Son (ELW #336)
Invitation to Lent
Friends in Christ,
today with the whole church we enter the time of remembering Jesus’ passover
from death to life, and our life in Christ is renewed.
We begin this holy season
by acknowledging our need for repentance and for God’s mercy. We are created to
experience joy in communion with God, to love one another, and to live in
harmony with creation. But our sinful rebellion separates us from God, our neighbours,
and creation, so that we do not enjoy the life our creator intended.
As disciples of
Jesus, we are called to a discipline that contends against evil and resists whatever
leads us away from love of God and neighbor. I invite you, therefore, to the discipline
of Lent—self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving
and works of love—strengthened by the gifts of word and sacrament. Let us continue
our journey through these forty days to the great Three Days of Jesus’ death and
resurrection.
Confession of Sin
Let us confess our
sin in the presence of God and of one another.
Most holy and
merciful God,
we confess to you and to one another,
and before the whole company of heaven,
that we have sinned by our fault,
by our own fault,
by our own most grievous fault,
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved
you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our
neighbours as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.
Have mercy on us, O God.
We have shut our
ears to your call to serve as Christ served us. We have not been true to the
mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our past
unfaithfulness, the pride, envy, hypocrisy, and apathy that have infected our lives,
we confess to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our self-indulgent
appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, we confess to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our negligence in
prayer and worship, and our failure to share the faith that is in us, we confess
to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our neglect of
human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, we
confess to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our false judgments,
our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbours, and our prejudice and contempt
toward those who differ from us, we confess to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Our waste and
pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
we confess to you.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Restore us, O God,
and let your anger depart from us.
Hear us, O God, for your mercy is great.
Imposition of Ashes
Almighty God, you
have created us out of the dust of the earth. May these ashes be a sign of our
mortality and penitence, reminding us that only by the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ are we given eternal life; through the same Jesus Christ, our Saviour
and Lord.
Amen.
Remember that you
are dust, and to dust you shall return. ☩
Hymn – Signed by Ashes
Accomplish
in us, O God, the work of your salvation,
that we
may show forth your glory in the world.
By the
cross and passion of your Son, our Saviour,
bring us
with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.
Almighty
God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ,
strengthen
us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal
life.
Amen.
Prayers
of Intercession
Drawn
close to the heart of God, we offer these prayers for the church, the world,
and all who are in need.
Renew
your church, O God. When we have drifted from our call to proclaim repentance and
to guide your people toward justice, lead us back to you. Encourage believers
who hold the church’s doors open to those who have felt excluded.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
Renew
your creation, O God. Transform parched places into watered gardens and preserve
every creature that awaits the arrival of spring. Turn each of us from
practices of environmental exploitation to become responsible stewards of all
you have made.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
Renew our
civic life, O God. Teach those in authority to advocate for the liberation of
all who are oppressed and grant them courage to make difficult decisions.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
Renew our
lives, O God. Spare your people from diseases of the body, mind, or spirit and send
healing to those overcome by illness or grief. Restore to us the joy of your
salvation.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
Renew
this congregation, O God. During these forty days of Lent, confirm our sense of
mission and expand our imagination for ministry. Deepen our faith, increase our
love, and draw us into your unfolding work of healing and restoration.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
As we
mark ashes on our foreheads, we give you praise, O God, for all the saints who
died and yet are alive with you. Receive us with them into your eternal
embrace.
Merciful
God,
receive
our prayer.
Accept
the prayers we bring, O God, on behalf of a world in need, for the sake of
Jesus
Christ.
Amen.
Offering
Hymn – Change My Heart, O God (ELW #801)
Offering
Prayer
Let us
pray.
God our
provider, you have not fed us with bread alone, but with words of grace and life.
Bless us and these your gifts, which we receive from your bounty, through Jesus
Christ
our Lord.
Amen.
This service was created for in-person worship. For those
worshiping on your own, you may either read the Eucharistic prayer, or skip
ahead to the Lord's Prayer.
Dialogue
The Lord
be with you.
And also
with you.
Lift up
your hearts.
We lift
them to the Lord.
Let us
give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is
right to give our thanks and praise.
Preface
It is
indeed right, our duty and our joy,
that we
should at all times and in all places
give
thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God,
through
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
You call
your people to cleanse their hearts
and
prepare with joy for the paschal feast,
that,
renewed in the gift of baptism,
we may
come to the fullness of your grace.
And so,
with all the choirs of angels,
with the
church on earth and the hosts of heaven,
we praise
your name and join their unending hymn:
Thanksgiving
at the Table
Blessed
are you, O God of the universe.
Your
mercy is everlasting
and your
faithfulness endures from age to age.
Praise to
you for creating the heavens and the earth.
Praise to
you for saving the earth from the waters of the flood.
Praise to
you for bringing the Israelites safely through the sea.
Praise to
you for leading your people through the wilderness
to the
land of milk and honey.
Praise to
you for the words and deeds of Jesus, your anointed one.
Praise to
you for the death and resurrection of Christ.
Praise to
you for your Spirit poured out on all nations.
In the night
in which he was betrayed,
our Lord
Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;
broke it,
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take and
eat; this is my body, given for you.
Do this
for the remembrance of me.
Again,
after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,
and gave
it for all to drink, saying:
This cup
is the new covenant in my blood,
shed for
you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin.
Do this
for the remembrance of me.
With this
bread and cup
we
remember our Lord’s passover from death to life
as we proclaim
the mystery of faith:
Christ
has died.
Christ is
risen.
Christ
will come again.
O God of
resurrection and new life:
Pour out
your Holy Spirit on us
and on
these gifts of bread and wine.
Bless
this feast.
Grace our
table with your presence.
Come,
Holy Spirit.
Reveal
yourself to us in the breaking of the bread.
Raise us
up as the body of Christ for the world.
Breathe
new life into us.
Send us
forth,
burning
with justice, peace, and love.
Come,
Holy Spirit.
With your
holy ones of all times and places,
with the
earth and all its creatures,
with sun
and moon and stars,
we praise
you, O God,
blessed
and holy Trinity,
now and
forever.
Amen.
Lord’s
Prayer
Gathered
into one by the Holy Spirit, let us pray as Jesus taught us.
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us
this day our daily bread;
and
forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us;
and lead
us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine
is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.
Breaking of the Bread
This is the body of Christ.
Behold what you are.
Become what you receive.
Amen.
Invitation
to Communion
This is the table of Christ. It is made ready
for those who love him, and for those who want to love him more. Come, whether
you have much faith or little, have tried to follow, or are afraid that you
have failed. Come. Because it is Christ's will that those who want to meet him,
might meet him here.
These are the gifts of God for the People of
God.
Thanks
be to God.
Share in
the Eucharist.
Prayer
After Communion
Let us
pray.
Merciful
God, accompany our journey through these forty days. Renew us in the gift of baptism,
that we may provide for those who are poor, pray for those in need, fast from self-indulgence,
and above all that we may find our treasure in the life of your Son, Jesus Christ,
our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and forever.
Amen.
Blessing
The peace
of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the
knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: and the
blessing of the Holy and Undivided Trinity be with you and remain with you
always, in the name of God, ☩ Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Sending Hymn – Abide with Me (ELW #629)
Dismissal
Go forth
into the world to serve God with gladness;
be of
good courage;
hold fast
to that which is good;
render to
no one evil for evil;
strengthen
the fainthearted; support the weak;
help the
afflicted; honor all people;
love and
serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God.
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