Ash Wednesday – February 18, 2026

In the name of Jesus, amen.

True repentance begins with a contrite heart, and then this is expressed outwardly.

I'll say that again. True repentance begins with a contrite heart,

a heart that is sorrowful,

and this sorrow expresses it outwardly, as we will see. Thank you.

Throughout the Old Testament, the people of God often used outward signs to

show their sorrow over sin.

One such outward sign was when they clothed themselves in sackcloth and they sat in ashes.

This was an outward sign of their inner sorrow over sin.

So Jacob, for example, did this when he believed that his son Joseph had been devoured by an animal.

King David did this, and his army wore sackcloth when they mourned the death of Abner.

And King Hezekiah tore his clothes

and put on sackcloth when Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrian army.

And Job sat in ashes. The

prophets called Israel to repentance by

means of sackcloth and ashes Jeremiah instructed

the people to roll in ashes and

to lament bitterly over your sins So all

of these actions had one purpose They

were an outward expression of their inner sorrow

Their grief and their repentance before

God Another outward sign of a contrite heart was fasting King David says in

Psalm 32 I humbled myself with fasting And the prophet Joel,

we heard tonight in our Old Testament reading Calls his people to, quote,

turn to me with all your heart With fasting,

with weeping, and with mourning,

Consecrate a fast.

Fast was not about an outward show, but again, it showed one's humble.

One's humility over the sorrow of sin.

Finally, another, the final outward expression of a sorrow over sin was the sacrifice of an animal.

The shedding of blood pointed not only to the seriousness of their sin,

but also pointed forward to an atonement by means of the blood of that animal,

but greater yet it pointed forward to the atonement that Christ shed for us and for our salvation.

So the offering of an animal sacrifice was meant to flow from the heart that

was broken and with a trust in God's mercy and the promise of a coming Savior.

For us tonight, the custom of placing ashes upon the forehead is an outward

expression of a contrite heart.

It is an external sign of an inner repentance.

The ashes placed in the sign of the cross on the forehead tonight is not magic,

and they do not earn forgiveness, and it's not a sacrament.

They do not remove sin.

Rather, they are a visible confession that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

It reminds us of our mortality and our upcoming death.

But there is always danger in an outward act while there is no repentance, no sorrow over sin.

It is possible to wear ashes and yet have an unrepentant heart.

It is possible to fast and yet remain prideful. It is possible to give offerings

and yet trust in oneself. it is possible to speak the words of confession and yet not mean them.

Jesus addresses this very problem in our Holy Gospel for today when he rebukes

the Pharisees who fasted in order to be seen by others. They disfigured their faces to appear holy.

Their repentance was a performance.

Their sorrow was staged. Their fasting was for the applause and honor of other people.

Again, they're hypocrites.

An outward show, but no repentance. The prophet Joel confronts the same hypocrisy

in our Old Testament reading for today when he said, rend your heart and not your garments.

In other words, do not merely tear your clothes as a sign of mourning,

but tear open your hearts.

Do not pretend to be repentant, but repent. Do not give God a show.

Repent of your sins. Isaiah speaks

for the Lord when he rejects empty

fasting saying when you fast you seek your own pleasure and Jeremiah declared

when the people fasted without repentance that God will not hear their cry and

King David himself says in Psalm 51 that God does not delight in burnt offering in of themselves.

God desires something deeper. He says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

a broken and contrite heart.

In other words, God says, I don't care about your sacrifices if they're not done in repentance.

The true sacrifice is from the heart.

God will despise hypocrisy. He will despise empty ritual.

He will despise a false repentance. But he will never despise a broken and contrite

heart that looks to Christ alone for forgiveness.

So there is no sense in wearing ashes and fasting or in any other outward act

of repentance if the heart is unrepentant.

God cannot be fooled.

He sees the heart. We think we can hide things from him.

He knows all.

He knows what is real and what is not.

And so tonight the question is, what is in your heart?

If God were to look inside your heart, and he does, what would he find?

He would find a heart that needs help.

Jesus once said, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder,

adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.

From the heart comes pride, envy, lust, anger, bitterness, greed, and selfishness.

From the heart come all sins that separate us from God and separate us from one another.

We have not loved God with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We have sinned in thought,

word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left done.

And that is why we are here tonight.

We have come on this Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a Lenten season,

to rend our hearts, not our garments.

We have come to confess our sins before God. We have come to admit that we are guilty.

The law of God exposes us. It has stripped away our excuses.

It reveals our sin.

And the ashes remind us of another sobering truth. We are mortal.

You are dust and to dust you shall return.

Because of sin, death has entered our world and death comes to all.

Even funerals remind us of this reality. And at the committal service in the

cemetery, we hear the words earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust in

the certain hope of the resurrection.

Adam came from the ground, and we will all return to the ground.

And yet, this is not the end of the story.

For tonight, we also prayed the words of Psalm 51.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

True repentance is not merely a sorrow over sin, a change of the heart.

It is a heart that confesses sin, yes, but it's a heart that believes in Christ

as our Savior and in Him the forgiveness of sins.

A repentant heart not only turns away from sin, but it turns toward God with

faith and His promises that He loves us.

But if we look into the heart of God, what do we see?

We see mercy we see

compassion we see a God

who is as Joel said gracious and

merciful slow to anger and

abounding in steadfast love God's greatest act of mercy is shown when he sent

his only begotten son to be our savior he died upon the cross as an atonement

for our sins The sins of the whole world And he paid for them by his own blood.

The ashes placed upon your forehead tonight were made from the palms of last year's Palm Sunday.

These palms were burned, made into ashes mixed with oil.

But the greatest sacrifice is not the burning of palms.

The greatest sacrifice is Christ himself, the Lamb of God, who is without blemish,

who died for us and in our place. he offered himself up on the cross for you and for me.

During this Lenten season, we will walk with our Lord to the cross.

We will hear about his suffering.

We will hear about his betrayal, his arrest, his trial, his scourging,

his mockery, and his crucifixion.

On Good Friday, we will hear of his death and his burial.

He who formed man, Adam, from the dust of the ground was himself laid in the very dust of the earth.

He bore the full weight of our sin. He endured the wrath of God that we deserve.

He cried out there from the cross that we would never be forsaken.

And because of his sacrifice, because of his death and resurrection,

God now speaks to you a word of mercy.

He says, I forgive you.

And because of Christ, God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding

in steadfast love toward you because of Jesus.

Tonight we hear the precious gospel and we receive the Lord's Supper,

the body and blood of Christ.

God's word, his gospel, the Lord's Supper are the treasures of God.

These treasures cannot be destroyed by moth or rust.

Thieves cannot break in and steal these precious gifts. Everything in this world

will pass away, but the word of God endures forever.

And our Lord Jesus says, where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

You have come here tonight with a contrite heart, longing, looking to receive God's mercy.

And where is your treasure?

Your treasure is in Christ.

Your treasure is in his cross. Your treasure is in his forgiveness.

Your treasure is in his promise of eternal life. Where your heart is There your

treasure Where your treasure is There your heart is also,

So you will leave this place tonight, not with a condemned heart,

but with a healthy heart.

You will leave tonight not with a guilty conscience, but with a cleansed conscience.

You will leave tonight not because of your works, but because of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

And now as we begin these 40 days of Lent, we are called to live lives of repentance

and faith. What are the fruits of faith?

In our gospel, Jesus mentions three of them.

First, give. Give alms. Help the poor. Love one another.

Jesus also mentions fasting to discipline our sinful nature and to focus more

on God's word and to focus on the cross.

And finally, Jesus in our gospel mentions prayer as a fruit of faith.

Pray individually. Pray as a family. Pray often. Pray every day.

In this way, you're letting your love for your neighbor be reflected from God's love toward you.

And your forgiveness toward others is a reflection of God's forgiveness for

you. and let everything you do

in word and deed reflect your life of repentance and faith in the gospel.

For the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

These God will not despise.

He has created in you a clean heart.

Thanks be to God. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.