“Seasons of Needing Forgiveness,” Ash Wednesday Feb. ‘18, Fifth Petition

1.       Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The message from God’s Word today as we observe Ash Wednesday focuses on the 5^th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer as we enter into the season of Lent.  It’s entitled, “Seasons of Needing Forgiveness,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.       The Lord’s Prayer. We pray it every time we gather for worship. We pray it at the end of our Church meetings and in our Bible Studies. Children have learned it at an early age. It’s prayed at the bedside of the ill and the dying, and I have at times wanted to weep with joy as I’ve heard someone who, at that last stage of life, seemingly can remember nothing else but is still able to recall and recite with me the Lord’s Prayer.

3.       If the last time you prayed the Lord’s Prayer was at worship, then I would also like to encourage you to join me in praying it when you’re all alone or, if the context calls, with someone else but in a very personal sort of way—at least three times per day through this season of Lent, as a discipline, if you will, a ritual.

4.       Let me explain.  There’s a book that I’ve been studying by Kurt Senske titled The Calling: Live a Life of Significance (St. Louis: CPH, 2010). Senske is a great proponent of rituals—habits that you develop that become part of you. Early in the book, he asks his readers to write “five rituals that you now practice or will implement to deepen your relationship with God.” I wrote to myself and now share with you: (1) pray at appointed times for discernment—early a.m., late a.m., and early p.m. (I’ve not always done so well with that.); (2) sing one hymn a day (does whistling while you’re in the shower count?); (3) and (4) tell someone and show someone you care about them (weekly, yes, I have; daily, have you done that today for your sweet valentine?); and (5) say the Lord’s Prayer at least three times per day.

5.       Throughout the next weeks, my hope and prayer is that this prayer taught us by our Lord will envelop your life and your lifestyle and will be a cure and a blessing for your pain and your guilt and your humility and your arrogance and your need and your relationships and . . . well, will envelop you as you recall the grace of Jesus. For, you see, the Lord’s Prayer is “A Prayer for All Seasons,” no matter in what season of life you find yourself.

6.       What happens is that the more you pray the Lord’s Prayer, the more you begin to insert petitions and prayers with personal needs or thoughts or fears. For instance, when I would pray “Thy kingdom come,” I would begin to say, “And that includes what is happening in other parts of the world and here on our own soil, with our nation’s dealings with North Korea and domestic and worldwide terrorism, for our nation’s leaders, etc.” And when I would pray, “Thy will be done on earth,” I would insert, “those on our congregation’s prayer list and those who have asked me to pray for them privately” and then begin to add all sorts of individuals for whom we pray on a daily basis. You get the point.

7.       Each week of these Lenten midweeks, we’ll stay on track, praying one petition at a time in sequence and offering Luther’s wonderfully insightful explanation. Except for tonight.  This is Ash Wednesday, a time to recall with heartfelt repentance our sin and sin’s ultimate curse, namely, death. Thus, the theme, The Lord’s Prayer Is for Our Seasons of Needing Forgiveness.

8.       So today we begin our series by skipping ahead to the Fifth Petition: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  What a powerful petition to pray when you need to be forgiven or when you need to forgive—either when you’re engulfed in guilt or you’re in the middle of bearing an enormous grudge; either when you’ve brought deep and lasting pain and grief to someone or when you’ve been stung by severe words or behavior; either when you’ve made a desperately wrong, selfish decision that put you on a path of potential destruction or when you’ve been the victim of someone else’s greed; either when you’ve broken a relationship with someone whom you’ve loved or when you’ve been betrayed by someone you thought loved you; when your tongue has been a weapon of unbridled anger or when your good name has been slandered by false testimony. Again, I say that throughout any of those seasons, what a powerful petition to pray: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

9.       Needing forgiveness or needing to forgive. It’s not coincidental that the one petition to which our Lord adds comment is this one. The words can cut us as a knife: “If you forgive people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,” and if you don’t, “your Father will not forgive your sins” (cf. Mt 6:14–15). That’s sobering. For it seems to suggest that God’s forgiveness is conditional, based on the degree to which we are able to forgive those who’ve sinned against us.

10.   God’s forgiving love is not, it is never, ever, at our initiative; it is always, forever and ever, solely and singularly at the request of God’s redeeming grace. Jesus’ powerful word from the cross affirms that basic truth, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The Father didn’t say to the Son, “Wait a while until these ungodly people repent of their sins, and then you go to the cross to complete the act of salvation.” The Father said to the Son, “Go now, go and suffer and die that these ungodly people may come to know and confess you as their personal Savior and Lord, that though their sins are like scarlet they shall be white as snow and remembered by me no more.” “Go now, my Son, that your sacrifice will be the power for them to forgive one another in your name.”

11.   God’s forgiveness to us and our forgiveness to others do go together though. If a person says, “I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me,” he’s hardly eager to receive God’s forgiveness, let alone reflect it. He’s more concerned with his own vengeful pride than he is about God’s encompassing grace. As one commentary notes, “An unforgiving spirit in us shuts the door in God’s face, even though God’s compassion still surrounds the house.” Or, as Paul wrote to the Church at Ephesus, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:32).

12.   Please pray with me the Lord’s Prayer, and let’s try it. Before we say this petition, pause and look to the cross, where you see the power of the Lord’s forgiving love, and reflect on the seasons of your life when on one side of the ledger or the other you need forgiveness or need to forgive. Remember what we said: the more we pray the prayer, the more we can insert our own needs—our specific trespasses, names of those we need to forgive.  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; (pause) and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us (pause); 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.