SERMON/HOMILY FOR ASH WEDNESDAY 14TH FEBRUARY 2024

SERMON/HOMILY FOR ASH WEDNESDAY 14TH FEBRUARY 2024

Joel 2:12-18; Ps.1; 2Cor.5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Receive Ash, do Lent with the right disposition!

It is not out of place to say we have come to the season of Lent again. This is because we are quite familiar with the season and its tenets. For example, we are aware but only reminded that today is a day of fasting and abstinence, especially from meat. We have also come to Church in this unusual number (for a weekday celebration) to receive ash. But we what may not be usual or taken for granted is our understanding of this day that opens the Lenten season. Why do you want to receive ash today? Why have you made the usual sacrifice to be in Church this day? Is it that you consider it a blessing to receive ash on your forehead, or you truly cherish the whole message of repentance that it represents, or maybe you just don’t want to be left out in the exercise. It is one thing to receive ash and observe all the Lenten observances for this day and season; but it is another thing to do all these with the right disposition.

While receiving the ash, the minister either calls us to repentance or reminds us that we are of dust. Both are essentially calling us to draw closer to God. This message of drawing closer to God is contained in the readings of today and will be re-echoed throughout this season. As we listen and reflect, I urge us to pay particular attention to the phrase: “drawing closer”. This phrase enables us to see repentance as everybody’s business. The point is, we are already having a relationship with God; we are already making effort to live holy lives (irrespective of our human imperfections); we usually pray, fast and give alms even outside Lenten season. So, if we limit repentance to mean the doing of these activities, we may be tempted to exclude ourselves.

All of us need to repent because all of us need to “draw closer” to God. Lent is a time to personally ascertain the level of our intimacy with God and then deepen it. Each passing day, all of us draw closer to our graves. But the grave will not be our eternal home. What becomes of us after death is dependent on our level of closeness with God while in this world. If we must be with God in heaven, we must consciously “draw closer” to God as each day passes wherein we are getting closer to our graves. A child that advances in knowledge each passing day/year in school will one day be able to write the promotion/external examinations. Just as the child will be academically stagnant if not advancing in knowledge, so also we risk being spiritually stagnant if we are not “drawing closer” to God each passing day.

So, lent is not a time to check if we are doing well spiritually or not; it is rather a time to see how we are advancing spiritually. If you are spiritual but not advancing in your spirituality, you are not doing well at all. How we shall individually advance in our spirituality is a personal matter (or a matter of spiritual direction). At the end of this Lenten season, you should have imbibe a good habit that you never had and dropped a bad habit. At the end of this holy season, your love for God should increase such that you are ready to make more sacrifices for God.

Lent is more of a thing of the heart; the external observances are only to enable us achieve this deep interiority. So, your fasting, almsgiving and prayers must make you a better child of God and more loving to your neighbour. _Country hard!_ *Use this lent to check how you are contributing to the hardness and the little you can do to make things better. _If only Christians repent, I bet you, dis country go better. See, God no dey check who fast pass; instead, he wan know who go become better person after this lent_ . I wish you and myself a fruitful Lenten season!