Ash Wednesday Jottings So Far

The beginnings of a sermon introduction and outline for Ash Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday Notes 2019

Galatians 5:1-15 (page 1171)

John 8:31-47 (page 1074)

May I ask, who had pancakes yesterday?

We had pancakes at 7am, because Jono had to be in school for extra maths at 8am.

And then the kids could have pancakes with their school lunch.

And then they were having pancakes at youth club too.

One can have too much of a good thing, maybe!

But did anyone have any special food today?

I suppose a simple plate of vegetables would be in the spirit of Lent.

But we had Sausages.

In fact, I am thinking of making Ash Wednesday always Sausage Day in the Lloyd household.

I may have told you before about the Affair of the Sausages?

The Affair of the Sausages was the event which sparked the Reformation in Zürich in 1522.

Huldrych Zwingli, the pastor of Gross Münster, spoke in favour of the eating of sausages in Lent and some people did in fact eat Sausages.

Zwingli defended them in his sermon entitled: “Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods”.

That sounds like a rattling good sermon, doesn’t it?!

The Reformer said that "Christians are free to fast or not to fast because the Bible does not prohibit the eating of meat during Lent.”

In fact, the Bible does not mention Lent at all.

So, you are free to observe Lent or not.

And it is up to you how you observe it.

We are not to judge one another in this, nor to be in competition, nor anything like that.

One of the great themes of the Reformation is the rediscovery of Christian Freedom.

Martin Luther had written a little book called “On The Freedom of a Christian”.

He famously said: "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."  

Freedom is also a great theme in the Bible.

Think, for example, of the great liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

Eventually the people would be enslaved again the exile and would later regain some of their freedom.

At the time of Jesus, likely many hoped for freedom from the Romans.

I don’t know if you remember the 1995 epic, Braveheart, in which Mel Gibson plays the 13^th Century Scottish Warrior, William Wallace.

We could perhaps do with his cry of “FREEDOM!” as highlighting something very important for the Christian.

Jesus came to bring freedom, but not necessarily in the way in which many of his contemporaries thought the Messiah would.

The liberty Jesus brings is not first of all civic or political.

He proclaimed liberty for the captives – but he didn’t lead a jail break.

There is much that we could say.

But let’s content ourselves today with three points and a so what.  

(1) Jesus brings freedom from the penalty of sin

(2) Jesus breaks the overwhelming power of sin

(3) Jesus will one day do away with the presence of sin entirely

So we are free:

Free to observe Lent or not as we see fit.

And free to serve in the new power of the Spirit, rather than in slavery to the sinful nature.