Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
Yesterday we read about Peter, who wondered what there would be for disciples who had given up everything to follow Jesus. Today, on Ash Wednesday, Jesus enumerated several possible wrong answers for his hearers. As his followers they should seek to give alms, making Jesus more important to them than their wealth. They should seek to pray, emulating the closeness of the relationship Jesus had with his Father. And they should fast, longing for the bridegroom in the ways and situations in which he felt absent from the world. But all of these ways of following Jesus could be done to seek rewards that were something less than Jesus intended to give his followers. They could be done for the praise and admiration of others. The trouble with this was if individuals received such a reward for their apparently pious practices they would not have room to receive the reward from the "Father who sees in secret". We can look to the world to repay us, or to God, but ultimately not both. If we are content with earthly sympathy we will not be open to the compassion of God. If we seek earthly vindication or revenge too aggressively we go against the command of God, who said, "Vengeance is mine, and recompense" (see Deuteronomy 32:35). Obviously we need justice in this world, but this is something that best when it is objective and impersonal. We are not meant to be entirely without recognition or sympathy. But this is more a matter of not excessively avoiding them than it is seeking them out ourselves. When situations or hard or when we are called to undertake difficult things, where, ultimately, do we look for our reward?
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
What is the point of this Lenten season in which we "proclaim a fast" and "call an assembly"? It is to plead for the mercy of God so that he can help us reestablish in our hearts his primacy over the things of this world that may have supplanted it. Jesus did what he did even though there was no immediate earthly gratification for doing so because of the knowledge that it was his Father's will. The sinless one, who need not have sacrificed at all, became an offering for the sin of the world. He did this so that we could be filled with God's own righteousness and therefore be empowered to love as he did. We receive this grace in our baptism by faith. But we are entirely capable of neglecting it to the degree that it is ineffective in us, that is, of receiving it in vain.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
Lent, in particular, is a graced time to reestablish the primacy of God in our hearts, and of letting his righteousness fill our lives. There is no more acceptable time. This is how we experience salvation.
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