Preparing for Worship - March 23, 2025

All of our Scripture readings this week focus on a key Lenten theme - the call to repentance and to trust in the mercy and forgiveness of our Lord, centered in Christ, our Savior. As Martin Luther wrote in his 95 Theses, “The whole life of a believer is to be one of repentance.”

In the Old Testament lesson, Ezekiel 33:7-20, the Lord calls Ezekiel to be a watchman for the house of Israel, warning the wicked to turn from their evil ways. The Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but wants them to turn back from evil and live. The problem is that “our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them.” None of us are good enough in God’s eyes on our own. “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses,” and who of us does not transgress and sin all too often? “If he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered.” We can never trust in our own righteousness because it is never good enough. Even Jesus, in the New Testament, says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). None of us can live up to that standard. We can only cry out for God’s mercy and forgiveness, and we can’t even speak that cry of mercy without God’s grace. As the psalmist, David, says to the Lord, “Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:9-12). It is continually with repentance that we approach our Lord, for it is “a broken and contrite heart that God will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). We pray with Jeremiah, “Bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God” (Jeremiah 31:18). We say with Lamentations 5:20, again and again, “Restore us to Yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored. Renew our days, as of old.” And we keep saying, with the writer of Psalm 119, “Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in Your ways. Confirm to Your servant Your promise… In Your righteousness give me life… Deliver me according to Your Word… Let my soul live and praise You… I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant”(Psalm 119:36-38, 40, 170, 175-176). Knowing our sinfulness from God’s Law, we seek our Lord’s mercy, and in hard times, may we be spared from saying, “The way of the Lord is not just.”

The psalm is Psalm 85. It begins with a remembrance of how the Lord was favorable to His land in the past and forgave and covered over the sins of the people and restored their fortunes. Now, the psalmist realizes that his people need to be revived and restored again. He knows that the Lord is “the God of their salvation,” and He prays that the Lord would “show His steadfast love and give them His salvation.” The psalmist trusts that the Lord would speak peace to His people, His saints, but He gives a warning that they should not “turn back to folly.” (Some think that this psalm was written as some of God’s people returned to the promised land after the Babylonian captivity, but drifted away from the Lord and His will for them. They faced opposition from the people now controlling that land and soon abandoned rebuilding the walls and the temple in Jerusalem, as they were supposed to do. (See Ezra 4, especially v.4-5, 24 and Nehemiah 1:4, 2:10, 19-20 and Haggai 1:3-11. Note how it was the Lord Himself who had to stir up the spirits of the people through His prophet and His Word and restore them for the work that they were to do. “I am with you, said the Lord… My Spirit remains in your midst… And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord” (Haggai 1:12-14, 2:5, 9). The last part of Psalm 85 looks forward to the future when “the steadfast love,” “faithfulness,” “righteousness,” and “peace” would finally come from the Lord in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Through Him, “the Lord would give what is good.” “Righteousness would go before Him and make His footsteps the way” to peace with God. See these words also spoken in prophecy about Jesus in Jeremiah 23:5-6, 33:6-9, and 14-16, etc. These are also the Words used to describe Jesus when He came into the world in Matthew 3:15, John 1:14-17, 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, 30-31, 1 Peter 3:18, etc. And Jesus is the Way to eternal life (John 14:1-6) and we follow “in His steps,” having been “healed” and “counted righteous” and “returned” to our Good Shepherd (1 Peter 2:21-25). Jesus turned our “futile ways” around so that we are “believers in God” with our “faith and hope” in Christ through the “living and abiding Word of God” (1 Peter 1:18-25). It is all God’s doing for us, in Christ.

The Gospel lesson is from Luke 13:1-9. These examples and the parable appear only in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus had been saying in Luke 12:54-57 that people could predict signs of changing weather, but hypocritically, they could not understand how to interpret the present times and the need for repentance and God’s mercy, coming in Him, the Christ. Now, in Luke 13, people were telling Jesus about Galileans who were killed by Pontius Pilate (probably for being Zealots, rebels against Rome). They also noticed the 18 people who had been killed in the collapse of a tower (likely being constructed under the direction of the Romans to provide more water for Jerusalem). People assumed that these people were worse sinners and offenders than others, and that is why they died as they did. Jesus said, in contrast, “I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Every one of us is a sinner, and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This is what we all deserve for our sins, left on our own. We are no better than those others who died in a tragic way. Paul quotes Scripture in Romans 3: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one,” according to God’s standard. “For by works of the Law, no human being will be justified in God’s sight, since through the Law comes knowledge of sin… For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Therefore, Jesus is saying, too, that we all need to repent of our sins and look only for God’s mercy and forgiveness for us. The parable of Jesus brings the same message. A fig tree is planted but produces no fruit. It could just be cut down, just using up ground, in a useless way. However, the vinedresser is patient and wants to give the fig tree more time, caring for it, digging around it, and providing the needed nourishment so that it can bear fruit through his efforts, not the fig tree’s efforts. Paul put it this way: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). All of us are saved only by the grace of God through faith - and even that faith is a gift of God. We can take no credit. As long as we are in this life, we are saints, as believers, but also sinners, with a sinful nature that still troubles us and temptations all around. It is Christ who has already paid for all of our sins, but we continually need the repentance and forgiveness we have in our Divine Service and through the Holy Spirit at work in us through the Word of God and the Sacraments. The Greek verb for the word “repent” in Luke 3:3 and 3:5 is in the present tense, which indicates it needs to be an ongoing action. “Unless you keep on repenting, you will all likewise perish.” That is what the words mean. Sometimes we also forget that we sin not only by active evil that we do, but also by what we should do but omit and fail to do. How many of those sins of omission do we do each day? We live only by the continuing grace and mercy of God, earned for us by Christ.

The Epistle lesson is from 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Paul describes God’s Old Testament people as under the cloud of God’s presence and going through a kind of baptism through the Red Sea and receiving spiritual food, the Word of God, along with manna and quail and water provided by the Lord Himself. In fact, Paul says the pre-incarnate Son of God, Christ, was also with them in some way, caring for them. Even with all these blessings, many of the Israelites went astray and were “overthrown” in the wilderness. Their failures, Paul says, are an example for us not to be drawn to evil as they were: idolatry, sexual immorality, putting Christ to the test, continual grumbling, and on and on. We, who have also been richly blessed by God, should learn from these things “written down for our instruction.” Then Paul includes these sobering Words: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” This would be “a misplaced trust in ourselves” and our abilities instead of relying upon the Lord. “God is faithful,” Paul says. God does not spare us from temptations. They are “common to man.” They are not easy to deal with. Paul uses strong words like temptations “overtaking” us - temptations hard to “endure.” Yet, there is always a way to escape. Paul was teaching the same to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1,3: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus… Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Sometimes, we fail and don’t take the way of escape, though. That is why Paul also says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, God remains faithful.” Jesus Himself preached, “Repent and believe the Gospel,” at the beginning of His ministry (Mark 1:14). And after His resurrection, He taught that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). There is our hope in Christ - and remember that even repentance is a gift that God works in us, along with forgiveness, in His love for us. See Acts 5:31: “God exalted Jesus at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” See also Acts 11:18: “They glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life,” (eternal Life through Jesus Christ.) May the Lord keep giving us such continuing repentance and forgiveness in Christ!