WEEK 3| LENT DEVOTIONAL

This Week’s Readings & Devotion:

Psalm 32

Joshua 5:9-12

2 corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3

Luke 15:11-32

WEEKLY REFLECTION:

Today’s reflection takes us to the heart of the grace of God.

We begin with Psalm 32. This is a Psalm of David, said to have been written after his rebuke by Nathan for his betrayal of Uriah and abuse of his wife, Bathsheba. He painfully experienced how miserable it is to feel God’s hand on account of sin. But knowing this, he invites us to consider what it means to have a good/blessed life: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Again he proclaims, “Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” In these proclamations, David implies that at the end of the day, we all need forgiveness for our actions.

Faced with the knowledge of our sin, our moral wrongdoing, our blatant evil, we can rush into two pitfalls. First, we can make light of our sin. We can make excuses or just not think about how much we have offended God. David tells us what happens when we take this course of action: “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.” We can ignore or downplay our guilt, but the result is organ decay (His body wastes away!). The rot in our soul, when unaddressed, eats at us until we can no longer ignore it. Secondly, we can come up with ways to free ourselves of guilt and try to earn favor with God. The issue with this approach is that we assume we can force God’s favor by doing things we should really be doing in the first place. What amount of sacrifices can appease a God who already owns all the animals? Ultimately, you end up wondering how much is enough to earn God’s favor, and that is its own despair. So faced with these natural reactions to sin, David says the true way out of guilt is when God does not count our sins against us. We, who are worthy of destruction and punishment because of our sin, cannot be reconciled to God, our Creator, unless He pardons us and gives us His favor. When we rid our souls of deceit, of hypocrisy (1 John 1:8), we see our need for forgiveness and the surpassing grace of God in accepting us. When we continue in hypocrisy, in deceit, then we do not really face the radicality of God’s grace. It is one thing to say you’rE sorry for something you’re not quite sorry for and receive forgiveness. It is something altogether, to really ponder how truly wrong our actions are, how they expose the deep and significant defects in character, to the point where we wonder why anyone should love us at all, and then receive forgiveness. This feeling is exactly what David is describing, but much more so because our sins are against a perfect and infinite God who has done no harm to us. When we see our need and cry out to God, He really forgives our sins and remembers them no more. And He does not just forget our sins, but He adopts us as His people. He says to David, “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” So, God does not just forgive the sin, but also allies Himself with us, giving us the riches of His wisdom, counsel, and peace. We turn from being estranged from God to being welcomed into His home. 

The same dynamic is at work in our Gospel reading, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The younger son, in asking for his father’s inheritance, wants the father to act as if he’s dead. The father obliges, and the son goes on his way. He spends his inheritance until he reaches poverty. (Maybe this spending is his own way of running from the possible guilt of what he’d done? But that’s beside the point). The son ends up degrading himself, being hired out to feed the pigs, making him ritually unclean as well. In a final act of desperation, the son goes back to his father, and the narrative changes to the grace of the father. The son believed he was only worthy to return as a servant, but the father restores him to his original place as a son. In fact, there is a great feast to celebrate his return. So far the story tracks well with the Psalm…until the older brother steps in. Notice how the older brother, angered by the celebration, disowns his own brother. When he talks to the father, he does not say, “but when my brother came ” he says, “when this son of yours came”. In fact, the older brother is upset because he was working like a servant hoping to be treated like a son when his younger brother, who asks to be a servant, is treated as a son! The father’s reply is biting: “All that is mine is yours.” The older brother’s mistake is to think that he could earn the father’s favor when it was already his to start with! The younger brother thought this when he came asking to be a servant but he was surprised by the father’s lavishness. The older brother was just offended for the same reason. So while Ps 32 tells us about the necessity of forgiveness, this parable exposes how God’s forgiveness runs up against our natural inclination to earn our favor. 

In fact, God’s forgiveness is so radical that it creates an entirely new type of existence. Turn to 2 Cor 5:16-21. Paul tells us the reason for God’s forgiveness: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” So here Paul tells us that our trespasses are not counted because of something Christ did that reconciled us to God. Verse 21 tells us how: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And here, we connect God’s mercy in forgiveness with His justice. God forgives us because Christ incurred the penalty for our sin on the cross. Though he was sinless, he was rendered legally sinful (our sins were counted to him), so that we might be sinless. Or as the hymn for today says, “In my place condemned he stood.” God counted our trespasses to Christ so He might not count them against us. Moreover, God counts Christ’s obedience as our own. This twofold work of pardoning our sin and counting us as righteous is what it means to be justified. You see, the logic of earning favor is the logic of the world. But justification means we are not treated as we deserve, but treated according to Christ’s sinless life, atoning death, and resurrection. You see, Adam had to work in order to earn his justification. His obedience was needed to show God that he was worthy to be in the Garden and inherit all the blessings promised to him. But for us, Christ is our justification. When he was raised from the dead, the Father showed the world that Christ was truly righteous (1 Tim 3:16). And now we receive this same verdict, this same favor, not by the works we do, but by taking in faith what Christ gives. 

So, instead of experiencing organ failure (think back to Ps 32) because of our sin, we are destined to be resurrected and renewed. We no longer carry the judgment of death, but of life. That’s why Paul says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” When we are “in Christ”, that is, we believe that he died and was raised for our sake, then our old self died with him on that Cross and our new self will be raised as he was (Rom 6:8, 2 Tim 2:11)! This happens first spiritually and second physically! When we believe in Christ, when we turn to God in faith, then our spirit is resurrected! Our resurrected spirit animates our new way of being in the world until what is true spiritually becomes true physically and totally! So, when God justifies us, we actually experience the beginning of the new creation, the redemption of the whole world! We are legally and spiritually reconciled but physically our flesh fights against this new creation. So when Paul says, “be reconciled to God”. He is saying, “Become what you already are”. We are already sons, start acting like sons, not servants! Stop working to earn His favor, but work as an expression of gratitude for the favor He freely gives! 

Finally, Joshua 5:9-12 clues us into how we are supposed to act in this passing time. Joshua brings his people to Gilgal, concluding the Israelites’ 40-year journey. Their wandering in the wilderness has ended but they have not yet entered the promised land yet. Like us, our wandering has ended, we are reconciled to God, but we have yet to experience the fullness of fellowship and favor with God. At this critical point, God commands Joshua to circumcise the new generation (not mentioned in this passage) and institute a Passover feast. These rituals renew the Israelite's commitment to depend on God for their next step in the journey. But what circumcision and Passover are for the Israelites, baptism, and communion are for us. By remembering our Baptism we remind ourselves that we have truly died and been raised again with Christ. That the resurrection life we have is now. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we feed on Christ’s broken body that makes us whole. These sacraments, alongside prayer and the Scriptures, are our sustenance for this journey. All of which reminds us not of our own work but of God’s favor.

So, this week, let us turn from our old pattern of trying to earn God’s favor as if He is a transactional businessman, to the new way of clinging to our Father, knowing He counts not our sin against us. All of this was made possible because Christ became the man of sorrows to make us children of joy. A joy we do not earn, but humbly receive with outstretched arms in faith. 

Contemplative Hymn: Hallelujah What a Savior