If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now, my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 

2 Chr. 7:14-15 (NIV)

In just a week, the many churches will celebrate Ash Wednesday (which happens to fall on Valentine’s Day this year… the irony is interesting).  While I love liturgy – it’s beauty and symbolism, my world is not surrounded by it. Like so many in our culture, I do not live by the liturgical calendar but by school, work and family calendars.

Consequently, every year it seems I am surprised to see people in the stores walking around with what looks like dirt in the middle of their forehead. Too often the dawning of what this really is doesn’t occur to me until after I have tried to be helpful and let someone know that they have dirt on their face! When I have a smudge on my forehead it’s usually the result of me working on a car or some other messy project and my inability to use a towel to clean my hands before wiping sweat away! So, rather than being insensitive, I really am just trying to be helpful!

Despite my inattentiveness to the Christian calendar and the annual surprise that it’s Ash Wednesday already, I appreciate the tradition of Ash Wednesday and Lent… the tradition of entering into a season of fasting and prayer in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s greatest gift to us… His life, death and resurrection as an atonement for our sins that we might be in intimate fellowship with the Father/Creator!

But there’s a problem with how we tend to observe this season of preparation…

You see, far too many of enter this time of repentance and celebration without being contrite about our condition. Contrition is the state of feeling remorseful and penitent about our sins and involves our wanting to do something about it! If you want proof that many don’t feel contrite about their sins, just think of the debauchery that happens related to “Fat Tuesday” in New Orleans and around the world… on a night dedicated to getting rid of the stuff you can’t eat during the fast of Lent, a party ensues that goes way beyond the boundaries of one who is preparing to show their penitence before God. That’s not new of course… just think of the Golden Calf incident in the Sanai! As Solomon wrote, there really is nothing new under the sun.

And it was Solomon to whom God spoke our promise today… that He would “heal the land” if the people came to the temple in humility and prayer for their brokenness and if they would turn from their wicked ways. In other words, God’s blessing of the temple of Solomon was conditional on the contriteness… the brokenness, and penitence… of the people for their sins! 

But in quoting this promise of God, we don’t often quote or read the rest of the promise of God to Solomon, the part where they will be “uprooted” and the temple destroyed if they are not contrite.

But was God serious about this?

Well, Solomon’s temple no longer stands in Jerusalem! 

But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make… it’s not about someone else’s contrition but ours.

We like to claim this promise as our own; that the followers of Christ -His Church- are the “new” Israel, the people of God. We claim the promise that God will bless His people when they are truly contrite, forgetting that there is also a warning that when we fail to do this, the “temple” will be destroyed. Now, in my understanding, that is not so much a promise of God’s active judgment but of God’s passive withdrawal of the blessings and protection to leave the people and their temple to the natural consequences of the world. But whether it is active or passive, the end is the same, the destruction of the temple and the people's ruin is assured when we fail to be contrite about our sinfulness.

All of this leads me to wonder… when lent has become a time where even the most devout fast only on Friday and when our prayers of remorse and our turning from wicked ways is intended for but a season, has God also withdrawn God’s blessing from the Church? Is the decline of the American church a result of the lack of true contrition and ought we to acknowledge our brokenness and poverty of spirit both personally and corporately to seek God’s healing? 

I can’t answer this question for anyone but me… but obviously, I think that may be part of the problem our churches face today. In our efforts to “love the sinner” we forget to hate the sin or just hate the sins of others and not our own!  Please know that in saying these words, I recognize that I am pointing to myself as a leader, a believer and a church member. Know that I count myself like Paul as chief among sinners!

So maybe, on this next Valentine's Day (which is also Ash Wednesday, remember… you know I won’t!), we need to be praying for broken hearts, not just candy hearts!

Prayer 



Good and gracious God, I must confess my own lack of contrition… that I have grown comfortable in my sin and brokenness and too often lack the desire to change… to turn from my “wicked ways.” Lord, come again into my life and rekindle the desire for holiness, the desire for righteousness, the desire to become like you. Uproot the wickedness in me and plant new seeds of love and compassion as only you can do.

 Amen.