“Forgiveness on God’s Terms” Luke 15.1–3, 11–32 Lent 4C March ‘22

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 4^th Sunday in Lent is taken from Luke 15:1-3, and 11-32, it’s entitled, Forgiveness on God’s Terms,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                While planning a mini vacation to Door County, WI last summer, I booked a hotel room online. As I clicked the button to move to the last page of the reservation information, I was stuck. An error message told me I hadn’t completed all the information. It took me a while finally to figure out that I hadn’t checked the box marked, “guarantee policy and agree to its terms.” Often these terms are a challenge for even the best lawyer to understand. Most of the time we don’t read them, hoping and praying there are no major hidden issues. When it comes to our salvation, we can’t do that. The terms do matter! Therefore, we thank God our Father that He forgives us on His terms, not ours.

3.                Father and children separated and restored—what glorious Good News! Our Introit for today, from Psalm 51, records David’s prayer for reconciliation to God his Heavenly Father after being confronted by Nathan the prophet. In the Collect, we acknowledge that God receives us as his children “though we deserve only punishment” because his “mercies are new every morning.” The Old Testament Reading, too, sings thanksgiving that God’s righteous anger with us is now turned away. And, in our Epistle from 2 Cor. 5:16-21, St. Paul declares us to be new creations, as Christ has reconciled us to God the Father.

4.                Forgiveness on our terms doesn’t work. The younger son in Jesus’ parable (the prodigal son) wanted forgiveness his way. He sinned before God and his father. By requesting his inheritance he, in effect, asked for his father’s death (v 12). He wanted to run his own life without any restrictions, making himself his god. He squandered all he had in reckless living (v 13). Then he attempted to solve his problems, only making his life worse (vv 15–16; cf. Lev 11:7–8). Finally, he acknowledged his sin: “When he came to himself” (Luke 15:17).

5.                But he drew up his own terms of forgiveness. Luke 15:17-19 says, “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ He planned to confess his sin before his father (Luke 15:18)—a good thing! He felt that he was no longer worthy to be called a son (Luke 15:19)—also right. But he would work as a hired servant—earn his keep to have enough to eat (Luke 15:17).

6.                We too want forgiveness on our own terms. We have sinned before God, our friends and family, and ourselves. As Christians, we feel we deserve God’s goodness simply because we are his children. We act like the older son in the parable. Luke 15:29 says, “but [the older son] answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.” We want to live our life on our own terms without God’s restrictions (Law) and thereby break all his Commandments. We squander the time, talents, and abilities with which God has blessed us. We often make our situation worse by doing good only to earn God’s favor.

7.                God’s Law does its work, showing us our sin and a need for a Savior. Ps 51:3–5 says, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” But we draw up our own terms of forgiveness. While we plan out our confession, we choose the time, place, even the words. We decide that as a result of our sin, we should no longer be called a “son,” with an heir’s right to Christ’s inheritance. So, we ask God to watch as we work out our penance, proving to him that we are truly sorry for our sin. When we work out forgiveness on our terms, how often do we end up frustrated or even despairing? Forgiveness on our terms doesn’t work. But God shows us a better way.

8.                God the Father forgives us on his terms. The father in the parable takes the initiative. He goes out to meet his younger son “while he was still a long way off” (Luke 15:20). He doesn’t scold or punish his son but embraces and kisses him before he can begin his confession (Luke 15:20). He shows his love and compassion for his younger son by restoring him to the family as a rightful heir. He authorizes gifts for his returning son, culminating in a banquet (Luke 15:22–24).

9.                The father also goes out to meet his older son with love. He explains that he is still the rightful heir of the family (Luke 15:31). It is fitting to celebrate his brother’s return for he “was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). Our heavenly Father takes the initiative to forgive us on his terms. Despite our sin, which is great, he continues to love us, seeking us out and dealing with us on his terms of love and mercy. He showed that love by taking our sin and placing it upon his Son, the perfect Lamb of God, who paid the punishment for that sin on Calvary’s cross. His Son did not stay dead but rose to life again, proving that his Father had accepted the sacrifice for sin. 1 Cor 15:17, 20 says, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” During times of doubt, he reassures us that we are still his heirs with our names written in his Book of Life. Titus 3:7 says, “so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” He promises an eternal banquet celebration for all who believe his promises and join him in heaven (Rev 19:9).

10.             When we squander everything, our heavenly Father is there with a word of assurance. Matthew 6:33 Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” When sickness or death comes, our Savior is there with a word of comfort. Jesus says in John 11:25–26, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” When we return to our Lord with repentant hearts, our heavenly Father is there, waiting with arms spread wide in a welcoming embrace. He deals with us according to his terms. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

 

 

“Return to the Lord, Who Will Raise You Up” Hosea 6.1–6 Lent 4 Mid, March ‘22

 

1.                Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word for our fourth Lenten midweek service is taken from Hosea 6:1-6, it’s entitled, “Return to the Lord, Who Will Raise You Up,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                The past three Wednesdays I have greeted you with the same message: “Return to the Lord!” On one hand, it’s a no-brainer. Ash Wednesday called you to turn from your sin and return to the Lord—that’s the repeated call of Scripture telling you to repent. The past two Wednesdays have underscored that call to return to the Lord by reminding you of what he’s done for you. He has redeemed you, and he has promised to restore you. It’s all because of what the Lord has done for you that you have faith so that you trust the very one to whom you are returning. But what he has done also creates a significant challenge. Returning is quite difficult when you know that the Lord is the one who’s brought discipline upon you. Hosea calls out to the faithful, to you, saying, “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1). Did you get that? The Lord has torn you and struck you down. And yet you’re supposed to return to him!? Though He has disciplined you, return to the Lord because you know Him.

3.                In Hosea 6:1, you hear Hosea’s call, “Let us return.” In good Hebrew poetic fashion, the prophet clarifies what that means. Hebrew poetry loves repetition. Say something once and then say it again to add emphasis or to bring clarity. To see that repetition here in Hosea 6, we need a quick grammatical reminder. I know that grammar isn’t the most exciting topic in the world for many, but when grammar is utilized and then recognized by the reader, it’s exciting to see what you can do with words. The grammatical device for your consideration here is the cohortative. You find it any time you hear “Let us.” You find it here in v 1. “Let us return.” And the cohortative pops up again in v 3, not just once but twice. “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord.”

4.                Hosea is calling the faithful—he is calling you—to return to the Lord because you know him. Listen to the rest of Hosea 6:3 as Hosea reminds you of what you know about the Lord: “His going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” In other words, you know how reliable he is. He is as reliable as the dawn. You will go to bed tonight confident that the dawn will come. The sun will rise tomorrow. It’s arisen every morning of your life. And you know basic astronomy to understand that the rotation of the earth ensures the sun will appear in the morning. The dawn is ingrained in the laws of nature. So also, the reliability of the Lord is a given. It’s ingrained in his very nature.

5.                Hosea offers another occasion of repetition. The reliability of the dawn is repeated by pointing out the reliability of the spring rains. This repetition brings another level of meaning. You can count on the spring rains not just because they come around every year, but also because you depend on them for the sake of the growing season. That’s how it is with the Lord as well. You can count on him not only because he comes to you faithfully, but also because you’re dependent on him doing so as he delivers all his goodness to you without fail.

6.                Hosea calls you to remember what you already know about the reliability and dependability of the Lord so that he might set it in stark contrast to what you also already know about us. Specifically, just what kind of love do we humans have? Hosea captures the Word of the Lord in Hosea 6:4: “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” You can bank on the spring rains because they come and nourish the earth. But the dew is there at the dawn, and then it quickly evaporates. For the parched ground, the dew is just a tease that fails to satisfy. You can’t depend on it.

7.                That is our love. Your love for others has failed them just like the dew that evaporates too quickly. There are those who have benefited mightily from your love. Your loving actions and dedication to family and friends have been a blessing delivered by Christ through you. But then there are those who are difficult to love. At first, your love for them is firm. In the course of time, it becomes forced because the demand is heavy and it’s a one-way street. No love is being returned to you. Eventually, you ignore them. You don’t answer their calls. You go out of your way to avoid them. You’ve become the morning dew for them.

8.                That’s also how it goes with our love for the Lord. There’s plenty that you receive from the Lord. All that you need for this body and life. Forgiveness of sin, everlasting life, and salvation. But when the righteous demands of God’s Law weigh upon you, when you’re called to repent, to turn away from sin and return to him, suddenly your love becomes dew. It evaporates and disappears.

9.                That’s why the Lord disciplines us. In Hosea 6:4, our love is described as the dew; then we hear in Hosea 6:5: “Therefore [because of what you just heard about our love being dew] I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.” The Lord is justified when he judges us. His judgment is not fickle but in direct response to our sin, including our love that quickly evaporates. The Lord’s judgment comes by him speaking the Word. His Word of judgment is powerful. Just as his Word could bring all things into being at creation, so his Word of judgment cuts us down. “I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth.” The Word of the Lord cuts deep. It cuts us that our sin might be revealed. In the process, we are slain.

10.             But the Lord will not stop there. Remember Hosea 6:1: “Let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.” And we can say, “He has slain us that he may make us alive again.” He does it by his Word. Just as the Lord brings judgment by speaking the Word, so he justifies by speaking the Word. You’ve heard that Word time and again, “I forgive you all your sin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Word of the Lord does what it says. With that Word, your sin is gone.

11.             Here you have two words from the Lord. The one judges you and kills you. The other forgives you and makes you alive. Then why does God’s forgiving word get the greater say? How can we bank on that word of forgiveness over and above God’s word of judgment? Because you know who the Lord is!

12.             Listen to the Lord speaking through his prophet Hosea, Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” He does not delight in judgment. He delights in steadfast love because that is what he has for you. Even when your love evaporates like the dew, his love for you remains steadfast. It is so steadfast that it’s put an end to sacrifice. The Lord does not desire sacrifice from you, because his love is sacrificial. We sing of that love during Lent. “My song is love unknown, My Savior’s love to me, Love to the loveless shown That they might lovely be” (LSB 430:1).

13.             Your Savior’s love to you is steadfast. It will not stop, and it will not fail. It keeps going all the way to the cross, that he might there forever put an end to sacrifice. Such love is like the dawn and the spring rains. It will not fail you. It is always present for you. It is so reliable, so steadfast, that even the cross could not slow that love. Quite the opposite: his love overflows from the cross.

14.             Listen again to the prophet of the Lord as he calls you to return. He gives you perfect reason to return, Hosea 6:2 says, “After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” The Lord has a way with the third day. It’s the day of life that cannot be ended. It is Christ’s day. And he makes it to be your day as well. As Christ lives, so you will live. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

 

 

“We Need Repentance Now” (Luke 13:1–9) Lent 3C March ‘22

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 3^rd Sunday in Lent is taken from Luke 13:1-9, it’s entitled, “We Need Repentance Now,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                We live in a culture that has mastered the art of being outraged. As soon as news breaks, social media is flooded with people playing a game of, “I am more outraged at this injustice than you are.” Who can forget a few weeks ago when Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from the TV Show, “The View” for two weeks after claiming that the Holocaust wasn't about race but “about man's inhumanity to man.” While it is helpful and necessary to take action against injustice in the world, we often run the danger of using these injustices as opportunities to fool ourselves. The attitude seems to be “Look at the wickedness of those people over there!” The text for today from Luke chapter 13 attacks this self-righteous attitude and makes clear that, we are the ones who need repentance, and we need it now!

3.                Our Introit today says, “The way of the wicked will perish.” While we may be tempted  to decry the wickedness of the world around us, the Gospel from Luke 13 for this Third Sunday in Lent makes it clear that apart from Jesus we are squarely in the camp of the wicked (Lk 13:5). The Apostle Paul warns us in the Epistle, “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12). In the Old Testament Reading, Ezekiel also warns that although we have been declared righteous, if we become arrogant in our righteousness and do injustice, we will die in injustice (Ezek. 33:13).

4.                God’s people are warned to hear his Word of Law and Gospel continually so that we do “not turn back to folly” (Ps 85:8). We are called to fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith (Gradual), for God is a God whose glory it is to have mercy and to be gracious to all who have gone astray (Collect), including us. While we may be tempted to view others as more evil or more deserving of God’s judgment than we ourselves, such an attitude is dangerous, for it breeds a prideful rejection of repentance. Today’s Readings call us to recognize the urgency of our own need for forgiveness and to rejoice in the mercy of the God who loves to save.

5.                The need for repentance is ours (Luke 13:1–5). After hearing Jesus’ words on reconciliation and the need for forgiveness in Luke 12:57–59, the crowds report to him about some who had suffered at the hands of Pilate. Their report suggests that the ones who had suffered somehow deserved it because they were more wicked than the crowds themselves. Jesus will not let that assumption stand. Pilate’s victims were not more wicked than those bringing the report—or than the innocent victims who suffered when a tower in Siloam fell.

6.                How many times have you found yourself happily cruising down the road when suddenly you spot a police car cleverly hiding, just waiting to nab an unsuspecting speedster? What do you do when you finally spot the cop? You tap your brakes. Anytime you witness a chain reaction of brake lights flickering into action on the highway, it’s a good bet there’s a trooper up ahead. If you were going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, you probably tap those brakes pretty hard. But even if you aren’t speeding, the response when you see a police car clocking traffic is to tap the brakes and slow down.

7.                If we know how to react in the presence of a police car, how much more should we know how to react when death rears its ugly head! Here in Luke 13 Jesus teaches us how we ought to react to the presence of tragedy and death in this fallen world. Rather than cruising past those suffering the pain of loss, such pain should cause us to “slow down” and realize our own sinfulness and our desperate need for salvation (Lk 13:1–5). When we realize these things, we shouldn’t delay repentance, any more than we should continue past the highway patrol at 90 miles an hour and hope the officer doesn’t notice. We may not abuse God’s grace, try his patience. Rather, we call out to our God in confession today, that we might receive His forgiveness right now (13:8–9). Don’t put off to tomorrow the forgiveness you need today!

8.                As I said, the presence of tragedy or death of any kind is a stark reminder of the reality of sin. We can’t say with certainty that any specific tragedy is the result of a specific identifiable sin, but we can say that tragedy in general is a consequence of sin in general (Rom 8:18–25).

9.                When we see tragedy in our world, we often want to distance ourselves from it. The people in our text avoided reality by placing blame on the victims—fostering a “that’ll never happen to me” mentality that is all too common in our sinful minds. We want to blame someone’s cancer on his or her smoking, drinking, or eating the wrong kinds of food. We’re convinced that if we keep healthy lifestyles, such sickness won’t attack us.

10.             But, tragedy and death should instead remind us of our own sinfulness and need for salvation. How many of us have been moved to contemplate our own mortality by witnessing the death of a loved one? The somber mood at a funeral is usually only partly over the death of the one in the casket. We ask when will my day come? That’s not because of some particular sin, but because we’re all sinful. We all need to repent, because we’re all going die, and one who dies without repentance and forgiveness will perish eternally.

11.             The time for repentance is now. Jesus illustrates the seriousness of the situation with a parable. In Luke 13:6–9 Jesus said, “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” The ax of judgment was raised and poised to strike down each of us until Jesus interceded. The ax of judgment has been delayed, but not forever. It could swing down anytime. Our need is urgent! The time for repentance is now! Thanks be to Christ that he interceded to reconcile us to God!

12.             The new life we have been given by Jesus is as trees that produce the fruit of faith. The vinedresser did what it took to restore us to life. His labor was giving his life! Through that effort of the vinedresser, we now produce the fruit of faith. St. Paul says in Gal. 5:22–23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

13.             Because we have the gift of reconciliation, we look forward to the new and perfect creation. Jesus promises that the Last Day will not be a day of judgment for the faithful (Jn 5:24). As we wait for that day, we continue to live a life of repentance (2 Pet 3:9–14), steadfastly studying and clinging to our Lord’s Word, treating each day as if it could be our last to receive the gift of forgiveness.

14.             We live in a world well versed in the art of rationalizing away sin as if it were not sin. We, too, might be tempted to think of sin and judgment as applying only to other people, making excuses for our own sin, while looking for God to punish others for theirs. Rather than living in this willful ignorance, our Lord has called us to use the experience of tragedy in this world as a reminder of the fate that awaits us all: death. Thanks be to God, for he has delivered his Son to death in our place, that we might not die eternally. May our Lord keep us faithful in repentance until the day he returns to bring us to our heavenly home. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.