ASH WEDNESDAY – LENT BEGINS
Romans 3:9-20
9 What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written:
‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.’
13 ‘Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.’
‘The venom of vipers is under their lips.’
14 ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’
15 ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery are in their paths,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.’
18 ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
2023 is the 250th Anniversary of John Newton writing of the hymn Amazing Grace, and for the first two weeks of Lent the devotional material will be looking at texts that play with the astounding good news of the Amazing Grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ.
John Newton, an Englishman, began his adult life as a slave trader, eventually becoming a captain of ship that carried slaves from Africa to America. He had a conversion experience and became an Anglican (Church of England) minister. He wrote a number of hymns and Amazing Grace was one of them, written for the New Year’s Eve service in 1773.
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday – a day to recognize that most uncomfortable of truths – the Total Depravity of human beings.
Having written those words, I can hear the objections. “But I know people who do good things.” And, “Not everything I do is wrong.” To proclaim the Total Depravity of human beings is not to say that everything human beings do is wrong, rather it is to say as the passage we have just read says, “all are under the power of sin” (vs. 9), “no one is righteous” (vs. 10), “all have turned aside” from God’s way (vs. 12). Maybe not all the time. But no one has lived a life where they have followed the law of God flawlessly. We know well the cry of Paul later in Romans, “The good I want to do, I do not good; and the wrong I don’t want to do, that I do.” (Romans 7:19)
We know in our bones the truth of the lines from Amazing Grace, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” We know that we have failed to be the people God made us to be, and while we resist calling ourselves sinners, we know that that is what we are. On Ash Wednesday, we remember this truth, God is God and we are not God. We remember that we are human and that we are wretches before a holy and awesome God.
PRAYER:
On this Ash Wednesday, O Lord, remind us that it is you who are God, and that we are not God. Confront us with our sin, that we may come to you for mercy and grace, and the redemption you promise to all who repent and turn to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.