Sermon Illustrations for Ash Wednesday (2013)
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Martin Luther began his famed Ninety-Five Theses with this statement: "... the entire life of believers [is] to be one of repentance" (Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 25).
Luther also makes clear why we need daily repentance, for we never escape sin on this side of the Christ's second coming: "The original sin in a man is like his beard, which though shaved off today so that a man is very smooth around his mouth, yet grows again by tomorrow morning" (Tischreden, No. 138).