1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation or our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this day we begin the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday is taken from Genesis 3 and is entitled, “The Ashes of Paradise Lost,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Since yesterday was Fat Tuesday, is today Skeletal Wednesday? Ash-the-skeleton-Wednesday, we may call it. Christmas is long finished, Epiphany over, Lent and Ash Wednesday stand at the door. They stand at the door and knock, but the question is: Will you let them in? Will you let these next 40 days have their way with you, or will you have your way with them? Will it be a season of repentance for you?
3. Hard questions, but good questions to ask on Ash Wednesday. It’s a day unique in a sad sort of way, for it’s about the only holy day that the world hasn’t brainwashed into a child that the Church no longer recognizes as her own. I suppose little huggable Ash Wednesday maggots wouldn’t vanish from the shelves quite as quickly as Easter bunnies. So, let us thank God for this Wednesday of ashes, as we glance over our shoulders to the Garden of Eden and the ashes of Paradise lost.
4. “By the sweat of your face,” God told guilty Adam, “you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Adam to ashes, Eve to dust. So, go our father and mother, the stuff beneath our feet. And we their children dance in the circle of death east of Eden, chanting: “Ring around the Garden, Souls in need of pardon, Ashes, ashes, We all fall down.” Down into sadness, down into sin, tumbling from the mountaintop Paradise that once was ours to the jungle of mortality far, far below.
5. O Adam, what have you done? O Eve, why have you done it? In love the Father created you both in his own image and likeness, so that as he is in heaven, so were you on earth. Tell me, was that not good enough for you? In love the Father gave you bodies and souls, wisdom and beauty, innocence and purity. Were these gifts somehow not up to par? In love the Father planted the Garden of Eden, gave you this little piece of heaven on earth as your home sweet home. But a five-star Paradise wasn’t up to your standards, was it? In love the Father gave you one to another, man to woman and woman to man, that you might live in an unending honeymoon of wedded bliss. Was your union flawed, your spouse not quite perfect enough for you? In love the Father gave you every single tree of Eden for food, save one. Was he holding out on you, by keeping from you that which would only work eternal harm? O Adam, what have you done? O Eve, why have you done it?
6. Why don’t you ask yourself, O sons of Adam, O daughters of Eve? Or do you think you can remove the speck from your parents’ eyes while a log sticks out of your own? At least Eve took the fruit to gain (what she thought would be) wisdom; but we, in our foolishness, boast of a wisdom we don’t have. Our mother saw that the fruit was a delight to the eyes, but we’ll lick our lips at something ugly, so long as it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Yes, Adam should’ve spoken up to warn his wife, to forbid her from doing such an evil deed; but what do we, his sons, do? We out-Adam, for we elbow our Eves out of the way so that we might be first in line to sink our teeth into the forbidden fruit. Or we lend our lips to Satan to tempt our wives and our daughters into doing whatever suits our fancy. “Adam and Eve went up the hill, To fetch a pail of poison, Down they fell and humored hell, And we’ve come tumbling after.” Tumbling out of Eden, exiled from the Paradise God wanted us to enjoy, living now in a wild jungle where Satan, the king of beasts roars, seeking someone—like you—to devour.
7. Repent. For dust you are but to worse than dust you shall soon return, if you don’t receive the grace of Christ Jesus. Return, man of dust, to the good and gracious God who formed you and breathed into your nostrils the Spirit of life. Return to your Heavenly Father who stands daily, gazing out the window, eagerly awaiting you, his prodigal children, to come home from the pigsty. Come home, fallen Adams and Eves, come home to Eden, to the garden prepared and still kept for you.
8. Do you fear the anger of the almighty Judge, who exiled you from this holy place? Fear not, for his anger has been spent upon his Son, the second Adam. For “Christ, the second Adam, came To bear our sin and woe and shame, To be our life, our light, our way, Our only hope, our only stay” (LSB 562:4).
9. Do you fear the cherubim, who long ago were posted there with flaming swords in their hands? Fear not, for these have hammered their swords into trumpets, announcing your return from exile, as the Church sings, “O, where is your sting, death? We fear you no more; Christ rose, and now open is fair Eden’s door” (LSB 480:4, copyright © 1941 CPH)—opened wide for you to be ushered back in by the very angels that once blocked your way.
10. Do you fear the ancient serpent, who tempted Eve and defiled Adam, who sank his fangs so deep into humanity that his poison still courses through our veins? Do you fear him? Fear not, for, “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). In fact, the heel of the woman’s Seed has already smashed the skull of that slithering devil from the top of the cross. Jesus’ heel has absorbed the venom of those hellish fangs and stood upright again outside his 3 day tomb.
11. Fear not. For your exile from Eden has come to an end. Today, you shall be with Jesus in paradise; long ago you entered paradise with him, for you have already been crucified with Christ. In the cross of the baptismal font, with liquid nails you were pinned to the tree with him, in him, through him, that as he is, so are you. He remembers you when he comes into his kingdom. For can a man forget his own body, his hands, his feet? And is that not what you are? For you are the body of Christ and individually members of it, his hands, his feet, his skin, and his bones. Jesus will not forget you.
12. Kiss the jungle good-bye. Or rather, wipe its mud from your feet, wash them in the river that flows from the heart of Eden, and step once more into the Garden that God himself calls home. Here in the Eden of the Church, you are truly home. God has prepared a table before you beneath the branches of the tree of life. Take, eat, dine on its fruit, and be filled with the life of the One who gave up his life on its branches. Take, drink, quench your thirst in the crimson red fruit of the vine. Here’s the forgiving feast of Paradise regained.
13. By the sweat of his face, like drops of blood, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, has earned for you the bread of life. In love, he’s earned your way back into the Eden of God’s presence, from which you formerly were banned. In love, he’s crushed the head of the serpent. In love, he’s bid the angels to put away their swords. In pure and perfect love, he’s made everything ready for you, his beloved Eve, his bride, the Church. Come to him who is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Welcome back from exile. Welcome back to Eden. Paradise, We Lost, but Paradise Jesus Regained. Amen.
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