+ 3rd Sunday in Lent – March 20th, 2022 +
Series C: Ezekiel 33:7-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Growing up watching kids shows – like Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers – they’d often have a word of the day. And everything in that episode revolved around that word.
Well, something like that is going on in today’s readings. The prophet Ezekiel warns Israel with the word of the day, “turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
St. Paul writes to the church in Corinth with the word of the day, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Our Lord Jesus speaks the word of the day, in response to calamities in Galilee and Jerusalem, and again as the main theme of the parable of the fig tree. “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
The word of the day, the word of the Lenten season, is repentance. Everything in our readings today revolves around God’s gift and God’s work of repentance for us and in us.
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
What’s going on here? The best explanation seems to be that the ruthless, violent, and merciless governor, Pontius Pilate, sent his troops in and ordered a massacre while the feast of the Passover was happening. And the blood of the victims mixed with the blood of the sacrificial Passover lambs, rendering everything and everyone unclean. A violent desecration.
Not only that, the crowds seem to have brought this news to Jesus seems in hopes that He would do the expected Messiah-thing, condemn Pilate and the outrageous, blasphemous, invading Romans.
Jesus’ response, however, is entirely unexpected. Jesus takes the opportunity to preach from the headlines. He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?
If Jesus were preaching from the headlines today it might sound like this. “Do you think that Tacoma resident found dead outside a convenience store last Monday on Portland Ave. was a worse sinner because he suffered that way? Or those four people on Mercer Street on whom the tower crane fell: do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Seattle?”
No, Jesus answers. They weren’t worse sinners. But isn’t that exactly the way the world, and our sinful flesh thinks. That God is like a Chuck E Cheese arcade game. If you’re, God will reward you. If you’re bad, bad things will happen. But our old Adam digs our grave a little deeper; when we hear Jesus’ question – “were they worse sinners than all the others?” – how quickly we find ourselves thinking or saying, “Well, they must’ve done something awful to deserve that. Thank God I’m not like them.”
In the face of our self-justification and excuse making, Jesus preaches repentance. No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
These are sobering, humbling words. Jesus draws our attention away from tragedies out there and the suffering of others, and points us to the tragedy of our own sin and of our need for repentance.
Jesus doesn’t draw a one to one correspondence between this sin and that tragedy. Jesus draws our attention to the fact that we live in a fallen world, of which we are a part, and to whose fallen and corrupt condition we are regularly contributing.
Jesus teaches us that life’s various tragedies aren’t opportunities for finger pointing, or excuse making, or comparing, but for repentance. Jesus reminds us that before we try to fix the speck in our brother’s eye we first must remove the old growth forest in our own eyes. Jesus calls for repentance.
Repentance is the word of the day, the word of Lent, but also in of our daily life. Until Christ returns, or calls us home, we’re in need of repentance. Jesus is constantly calling us back to him, back to his word, back to confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness. And, as C.S. Lewis once wrote, God’s work of repentance in us is “no fun at all. It’s something much harder than eating humble pie. It means unlearning all our self-conceit and self-will…it means undergoing a kind of death” (Mere Christianity, p. 56-57).
That’s the way the Scriptures talk about your life in Christ. Repentance is the daily journey of the Christian life. A daily dying to sin, repenting and confessing our sin; a daily rising again in the forgiveness Jesus won for you on the cross and given in his gifts of his word, water, body and blood.
This work of repentance is also God’s gift and work for you and in you. Think about it for a moment.
How do you know your sins? God’s Word reveals them through His Word of Law. How do you see your sin for what it is and ask for forgiveness? The Holy Spirit convicts you. How do you return to God when all you really want to do is return to our sin? It is God who “repents” you, who turns your heart back to Him. Repentance isn’t our work we do to please God, but the work God is pleased to do in us through His Word by the Holy Spirit.
That’s what Jesus does. He repents you. He forgives you. He turns your heart back to God. He changes your mind and gives you the mind of Christ. He waters, feeds, and nourishes you. He spreads his gifts around you like the vinedresser spreading manure around a tree.
Jesus is the gracious vinedresser who steps in to tend and care for us. He is the Mediator between us and the ax belongs at our roots. Jesus lays down his life on the tree to forgive, renew, and restore you.
God is not a God of karma, where you get what you deserve. He is the God of grace. Jesus gets what we deserved – our sin, punishment, death – and we get what we don’t deserve; Jesus’ life, resurrection, forgiveness, and salvation. That’s the best answer to that age old question of “why do bad things happen to good people?” is to remember “That only happened once, and He volunteered.”
For there, in Jerusalem, Jesus stood before that same ruthless, violent, merciless Roman governor. Jesus, the innocent one becomes the victim for you. The Judge of all is judged in your place. Jesus is crucified under Pontius Pilate for you.
That is how you grow in the good fruit of repentance and love for others. By living in, and receiving Christ’s mercy. Jesus plants and roots you in his cross,. And in Jesus, you are alive. You are a good tree. You bear the good fruit of repentance, the fruit of good works, the fruits of the Spirit.
Yes, repentance is the word of the day. But Jesus has another, greater word of the day for you as well. A word that gives us hope, comfort, and forgiveness. Mercy.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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