Ash Wednesday 2025

March 21, 2025 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

“Receive the sign of the holy cross on both your forehead and your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”

These words from the liturgy of Holy Baptism should be on our hearts this night, when we are marked again by the sign of the holy cross, and reminded of our own impending death.

Yet aren’t we doing the very thing Jesus condemns? In the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, Jesus tells us not to disfigure our faces, not to appear to men to be fasting, and that we should wash our faces. Are we the hypocrites Jesus warns about?

Ash Wednesday 2023

March 22, 2023 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

The ashes show us the end. The end of the gods we serve.

The gods of pride, power, pleasure. You serve them with prurience, preening, pouting. You prate and prattle, but do you repent? Do you change? What has your service to the gods of this age really achieved? Where will it get you? Dust and ashes, nothing but….

Ash Wednesday 2019

March 08, 2019 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

The day will come when you will experience the wrath of God; this is shown us in death, and in other disasters that visit us. The holy prophet Habakkuk teaches us to pray to God like this: “In wrath remember mercy” [3:2]. This is our prayer in the day of trouble. But from the New Testament we have something even better; in the hour of trouble we can pray the prayer of the dying thief: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” The Lord’s remembrance brought him, and will bring you, even to paradise.