March 17, 2025

Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 26:8-15

Daily Lectionary: Genesis 18:1-15; Genesis 18:16-20:18; Mark 6:14-34

Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster that he has pronounced against you. (Jeremiah 26:13)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

You’d better shape up! Perhaps one of your parents or a teacher or a coach has said something like this to you. Get your act together! Turn it around! Fix that attitude! Truthfully, we need to be told these things because we get bent out of shape, our acts fall apart, we walk in the wrong ways, and our attitudes are sour more often than they should be. Perhaps more often than we’d like to admit.

Jeremiah has a similar message for the officials of Judah and all the people: “Mend your ways and your deeds!” he says. By this, he means, “Obey the voice of the Lord your God!” Shape up, get it together, turn it around, fix that attitude. Or else the Lord will bring disaster. But if you obey, God will relent.

That’s the way the Law of God works. Threats and punishments. Obey…or else. We call this the first use of the Law, and it is somewhat successful in getting people to do the things that they should do. In this case, it worked. The officials and all the people decided not to put Jeremiah to death. But behaviors motivated by threats and punishments don’t last. They’re superficial. 

The Law of God also shows us what we should be doing and even offers rewards for those who do it. The converse of Jeremiah’s threat is that if the people mend their ways and obey God, they will be rewarded. We call this the third use of the Law. But such positive reinforcement also only goes so far. We do the Law for selfish gain. The Law of God can keep us from doing what we shouldn’t do and even get us to do what we should do, but it will never make us love doing it. And without love, you cannot fulfill the Law (Rom. 13:10).

There is another function of the Law. St. Paul writes, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass” (Rom 5:20). Even though the people relented in putting Jeremiah to death, the pattern of persecuting the prophets continued to Jesus, whom the officials and the people put to death for speaking God’s Word. But in putting Him to death, God revealed the solution to the problem of the Law. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:20). By increasing the trespass, the Law also shows the severity of our sin and the abundance of God’s grace. Turn it around and turn to the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

To Jesus we for refuge flee, Who from the curse has set us free, And humbly worship at His throne, Saved by His grace through faith alone. (LSB 579:6)

-Rev. Jacob Ehrhard, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School in Chicago, IL.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

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