March 31, 2011 - Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Today's Reading: Jeremiah 26:1-15
Daily Lectionary: Genesis 39:1-23; Mark 10:13-31
Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, 'This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant'?" And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD. (Jeremiah 26:9)
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. We ought to take our sin seriously. The people of God in the Old Testament didn't so much. They figured they were God's chosen and it didn't matter if they were serious about their faith or if they bothered to care for each other. The Lord threatened a mighty punishment for them. Jeremiah told them it was coming.
But there's something else that ought to convince us that our sins are pretty serious. The death of God's Son. Think about it for a minute. God became man and was killed on a cross because our sins couldn't be gotten rid of any other way. The death of Jesus shows us just how awful and terrible our sins really are. They killed the Son of God!
And yet at the same time, that's the Good News—that God's Son dies with our sins heaped upon Him. True repentance isn't that we just sit around and feel sad because our sins are so bad. True repentance means acknowledging our sins but also believing that for Jesus' sake those sins are forgiven and forgotten by God.
When Jesus is crucified on Calvary, far more than God's people are punished. God's Son is the “desolate city” that has been thrown down by the judgment of God's Law against sin. Our sin. On Jesus. The devil hates this message because he knows it spells his doom. Most people don't want to hear it either, because it means they must acknowledge that their sins are really that bad.
Don't hide from such truth! Confess your sins. Admit how awful they are that the Son of God died for them. But that's not all. By that death, His promise is that those sins are forgiven and will never stand against you. That's all Good News. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Grant that I Your passion view With repentant grieving. Let me not bring shame to You By unholy living. How could I refuse to shun Ev'ry sinful pleasure Since for me God's only Son Suffered without measure? (LSB 440:4)
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